Amok Time.
Captain Pike
- Thread starter PikeFan
- Start date
Amok Time.
Umm, which bit? I don't find superlatives on the crew or the ship there. Spock is almost a legend among Vulcans, yes, but that probably has little to do with the quality of the Enterprise or her crew - or even with the fact of him being a Starfleet officer. He's probably near-legendary mainly for what he's not, namely the obedient son of his renowned father.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
I think the whole lot of you have drunk WAY too much Roumlan Ale!
The Enterprise a mid level work horse??? Pike a mere Commander?? Pike just appointed Captain?? WTF??
First off all, you ALWAYS discount anything you see visually in a TV show's pilot - and that literally goes double for Trek! With Pilots, you are lucky if NAMES stay the same when it goes to series status.
Lets work on these cockamamie 'theories' on yours one at a time:
The Enterpriseas 'mid level workhorse': Thats so bad as to be sacrilegious! The whole POINT of Trek is that the Big E is a SPECIAL SHIP! "Tomorrow is Yesterday":
CHRISTOPHER (to Kirk): Big ship
KIRK: Only twelve like it in the fleet!
Bread and Circuses:
CLAUDIUS: I did not expect that reaction from him (Kirk).
MERRICK: He is not just a Captain, he commands a Starship...special ship, special crew (MY ITALICS) - I tried for such a command once.
How about in "Errand of Mercy", when Kor finds who 'Baroner' really is? He almost has an orgasm realizing he has a STARSHIP captain in his midst, available to take hostage! Would he get that excited about some dumb two striper in command of a 'mid level workhorse'??
Its also brought up by Timo and whomever that the E is an old ship- well...SO?? Part of the -admittedly unofficial- thing that makes the Constitution class ships so legendary in Starfleet, is the idea that their basic frame and structure was so good, and so durable, that they could be constantly refitted and kept in service. And yes, there is precedent in our military - try the B-52 bomber on for size. THEY lasted in service -with refits - over 40 years! If you want to get picky, the Enterprise we see in TOS, has been refitted at least twice - once...very gently inbetween the time of The Cage and WNMHGB, and a MAJOR refit after the events of WNMHGB. And probably several times inbetween before The Cage and maybe some upgrades during the TOS voyages.
The idea Captain Pike is some sort of newbie and/or 'non-Captain' Captain(??) Lets take a look at The Cage- We see the Enterprise intercept the message from the Columbia, and and Pike decides to stay on course to Vega. Whats the next thing that happens? Pike and Boyce have a deep conversation over how tired Pike is, and maybe he should take a rest leave. Pike says hes tired of all the decisions involved in starship command. Sure sounds like someone who has been doing it a long time, no? And again, part of the whole CONCEPT of Trek is the idea that the Captain of the ship - be it Pike....Kirk...even Picard...is a SPECIAL officer, not just some guy off the Starfleet Academy assembly line. This is pointed out in episode after episode.
The Enterprise a mid level work horse??? Pike a mere Commander?? Pike just appointed Captain?? WTF??
First off all, you ALWAYS discount anything you see visually in a TV show's pilot - and that literally goes double for Trek! With Pilots, you are lucky if NAMES stay the same when it goes to series status.
Lets work on these cockamamie 'theories' on yours one at a time:
The Enterpriseas 'mid level workhorse': Thats so bad as to be sacrilegious! The whole POINT of Trek is that the Big E is a SPECIAL SHIP! "Tomorrow is Yesterday":
CHRISTOPHER (to Kirk): Big ship
KIRK: Only twelve like it in the fleet!
Bread and Circuses:
CLAUDIUS: I did not expect that reaction from him (Kirk).
MERRICK: He is not just a Captain, he commands a Starship...special ship, special crew (MY ITALICS) - I tried for such a command once.
How about in "Errand of Mercy", when Kor finds who 'Baroner' really is? He almost has an orgasm realizing he has a STARSHIP captain in his midst, available to take hostage! Would he get that excited about some dumb two striper in command of a 'mid level workhorse'??
Its also brought up by Timo and whomever that the E is an old ship- well...SO?? Part of the -admittedly unofficial- thing that makes the Constitution class ships so legendary in Starfleet, is the idea that their basic frame and structure was so good, and so durable, that they could be constantly refitted and kept in service. And yes, there is precedent in our military - try the B-52 bomber on for size. THEY lasted in service -with refits - over 40 years! If you want to get picky, the Enterprise we see in TOS, has been refitted at least twice - once...very gently inbetween the time of The Cage and WNMHGB, and a MAJOR refit after the events of WNMHGB. And probably several times inbetween before The Cage and maybe some upgrades during the TOS voyages.
The idea Captain Pike is some sort of newbie and/or 'non-Captain' Captain(??) Lets take a look at The Cage- We see the Enterprise intercept the message from the Columbia, and and Pike decides to stay on course to Vega. Whats the next thing that happens? Pike and Boyce have a deep conversation over how tired Pike is, and maybe he should take a rest leave. Pike says hes tired of all the decisions involved in starship command. Sure sounds like someone who has been doing it a long time, no? And again, part of the whole CONCEPT of Trek is the idea that the Captain of the ship - be it Pike....Kirk...even Picard...is a SPECIAL officer, not just some guy off the Starfleet Academy assembly line. This is pointed out in episode after episode.
That's for saturday kiddie specials (TAS perhaps notwithstanding). Real heroes don't fly fanboy-designed überships. They work with what has been given to them, and are all the more heroic for it.
Kirk, Pike, and all the concepts for TOS leads before them were supposed to be the Horatio Hornblowers of space: heroes from the rank and file, not born to the purple. Nothing in TOS contradicts this concept.
There'd hardly be an infinite number of any ship type, from battleship to minesweeper. Only six Pegasus hydrofoils in recent USN; very special, but hardly the cream of the cream.
In contrast, there's no limit set for the number of starships in Starfleet.
More like somebody who has not yet learned to cope. Kirk lost dozens of crew during the first few years of his mission; this seems to be Pike's first loss.
Absolutely not. Kirk is an Iowan farmboy, Picard is the son of a vintner. Not noblemen, but ordinary working stiffs. Picard is older than Kirk and has more brownie points, so he gets to command the Federation Flagship and is a celebrity of sorts (either as the cause or as the effect), but nowhere is Kirk's ship considered such a special showpiece. Picard's crew also has some celebrities aboard - the android, the Klingon, the ambassador's daughter. Kirk only has Spock, who's an outcast of sorts and keeps a low profile. And neither Picard nor Kirk brags about being special, of being the SG-1 that gets sent to sort out the mess made by SG-13.
Our heroes are not specially anointed, that's the very point of Trek. They are people for whom space exploration is not an adventure but a day's work, people who tackle the absurdities of the week by referring to their generic Starfleet training and using their generic Starfleet hardware, plus a healthy dose of common sense and natural charm.
Timo Saloniemi
You do seem to ignore Kor's delight at having captured a starship captain and Merrick's stating that the commander of a starship is a special individual...
Bread and Circuses said:
Add to the fact that single Connie can destroy the habitable surface of a planet per A Taste of Armageddon and I think a strong case can be made that the Constitution class is the top dog in the Starfleet hierarchy in the mid-23rd century.
Well, the impression I have (gleaned only from TOS with no retrofitting to accommodate the spinoffs) is that the twelve ships of the Enterprise's class were the top of the line in Starfleet, and that the twelve captains of those ships were indeed exceptional officers, the winners of fierce competition for those twelve coveted command slots. However, neither Kirk (except for being the youngest of those captains) nor the Enterprise were considered especially exceptional compared to the other members of that select club of twelve.
I guess we can say that it was the Enterprise's crew that held the legendary reputation amongst fleet of being extraordinarily exceptional rather than the ship itself.
I think because of that it was assumed the Enterprise itself was "the" ship of the fleet. I also guess that is why they decided to officially make the Enterprise the flagship in XI.
I think because of that it was assumed the Enterprise itself was "the" ship of the fleet. I also guess that is why they decided to officially make the Enterprise the flagship in XI.
The decisions made in JJ's movie had more to do with playing to the general public's conceptions (and misconceptions) about Star Trek, even if those preconceived notions had no resemblance to the actual show.
The mis-application of the term 'flagship' lies at the feet of The Next Generation.
I think that's quite true. Due to the worshipful treatment given the characters and ship in the movies and spinoffs, lots of people just assume that Kirk and his crew and his ship were always the universally acknowledge superstars of Starfleet. Not so in TOS.
Incidentally, it's these same people who tend to believe that TOS was an "ensemble" show with seven main cast members.
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Only the former. Kirk doesn't become particularly unique simply for being a starship skipper. Even in the TOS context where a starship is a better ship than others, there are starships and starships: the ancient Archon was one, too. No doubt various second-rate starships serve at all times alongside the current operational spearheads and the latest prototypes.
The Kor bit I did ignore, though. Sorry.
Yeah, might be Kirk is legendary among Klingons. Might simply be that Kor is delighted to have "a starship commander", any starship commander, in his hands, and realizes that Kirk must be from the starship that was reported to be in this area (and that Klingons already tried to intercept in vain).
Do we have a reason to think the feat would require more than one ship of any other type?
But we don't know if the crew really did anything extraordinarily extraordinary; at the end of each episode, it simply seemed like it was time for the usual beer after a competent nine-to-five day.
Nor did it seem that our heroes were ever assigned any missions of the nature where previous crews had failed and the best of the best were now being brought in to complete the job. Sometimes the heroes stumbled onto situations where previous Starfleeters or Earthlings had met with failure, but they were never actually assigned to sort out something where a starship or other Federation asset had recently failed. The cream of the cream could be expected to be tasked with exactly that sort of work.
In the movie, the ship was exalted and revered before Kirk set foot on it. Sort of the reverse dramatic effect from the one where our heroes make an impression through their heroics and thus give their ship a good rep, too. I wouldn't consider that dramatic choice a mindless copying of (mis)perceived TOS ideas, but a wholly deliberate decision that intentionally sets the movie timeline apart from the old TV show one.
...Which is why anything said by Scotty or LaForge on the issue might have to be taken with a sack or two of salt. Curiously, Kirk was extremely hesistant to give praise to his ship or crew in terms of superlatives. He lauded their competence, not their excellence. Spock's "Immunity Syndrome" pep talk is a very rare example of superlative use, and is not undersigned by Kirk.
Timo Saloniemi
But it was their actions and the reputation of the crew, countless brought up throughout the series and in the movies, that proved to show that the commanding crew of the Enterprise were more than simply Starfleet officers.
By the time we hit the movies, it became a point of " We need to send out Jim Kirk and the Enterprise to save the day ". The crew's reputation on board that ship superseded that of the ship and of the officers amongst the other ships in that class.
They were on a 5 year mission exploring the unexplored. You simply don't send anyone out there on a mission like that. I think their adventures on that mission and their response to the unknown helped exalt them.
This is my favorite Captain Pike.
Beep & blink your light once if you agree. Twice if you don't.
Beep-blink! Beep-blink!
"Ah . . . you said you agreed -- twice!"
You do realize that we'd never have heard of Captain Pike except for the budget-conscious re-use of the rejected pilot footage.
I don't think that the producers had any interest in giving the Enterprise a rich history going back 13 years. It just doesn't seem at all characteristic for television series in the 1960s.
But circumstance forced them to do it. To our delight, so many years later!
And that is one of the reasons I credit Roddenberry with being an outstanding producer. He basically managed to create a two-part clip show that not only gave the fictional universe of the show a lot more depth, but saved the show's ass in the process.
In ST:TMP, it was more like "This week, Enterprise is the only ship available for defending Earth - and James Kirk has to fight Starfleet for the privilege of performing the mission". Hardly praise for the character, although at the end of the movie he did finally have celebrity status. In ST2 through 4, it was "Jim Kirk celebrates his birthday, with consequences". Only ST5 and ST6 would qualify as "Special ship and crew are launched for a special mission".
And in ST5, the ship being sent out appeared to be special in the sense of being expendable. Admiral "Bob" admitted there'd be other ships around, and the only thing that mattered was getting Kirk to the spot (although it was never explained why he couldn't have gone there aboard the Excelsior). But it didn't sound like a priority mission or anything: Starfleet seemed to abandon Kirk after launch just like the other empires abandoned their own, not caring much about the outcome. At that point, Kirk was more like an outcast, a mutineer only saved from the gallows by public opinion.
In ST6, the ship was again far from legendary (she'd been a mere replica for the past movie and a half anyway), and Kirk got a mission because he was a tough old nut, and a prime example of the old school, not because he was modern Starfleet's current best.
Timo Saloniemi
The fact that the Admiral was like " Kirk we need you out there you're the best alternative we have " or whatever is a clear sign of " we need Jim Kirk, he's the best. He can't fuck this up ". Starfleet is huge, why are they going to pick the old Captain with the broken ass ship out of all the other ships in the fleet? Doesn't make any sense other than Kirk was the best choice for the job.
Same in STVI, it was an issue of " Jim Kirk is the best at dealing with the Klingons, he has the most history with them, let's send him out "
They didn't just "send" him out, there was a reason as to why he was sent out and that reason was he was the best at his craft and what he did.
Same in STVI, it was an issue of " Jim Kirk is the best at dealing with the Klingons, he has the most history with them, let's send him out "
They didn't just "send" him out, there was a reason as to why he was sent out and that reason was he was the best at his craft and what he did.
But most of that history wasn't exactly positive from a Klingon point of view.
Spock would have been a more logical choice to command the mission since he had been having positive communications with Gorkon.
They weren't looking at it from that angle, they were looking at it from how Spock explained it, " Only Nixon can go to China "
Spock was the son of an Ambassador, his political views in Starfleet were (probably) at that time open to negotiating with all the enemies in trying to find a common ground. Kirk, on the other hand, continued to follow the conservative beliefs of Starfleet that the Klingons are the enemies, you can not work with them, and if they down on their feet kick them and let them die. Kirk going to meet with the Klingons would show the Empire that not only is one of the most famous members of the Fleet meeting with them but the one with the most hatred towards them.
It would not receive opposition from Starfleet, because he's already in their favor, and it would ease the Klingons into accepting renegotiation - " If this guy is willing to reach across the aisle, maybe we should ". He would be hard on them, not forgiving, but still willing to help. Unlike Spock who probably would have been duped (in which he was in the end).
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The presence of Jim Kirk could only complicate what should've been a simple, straight forward escort mission...
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country said:
The Starfleet Commander indicates that they are sending Jim Kirk to keep the Klingons from attacking. Starfleet doesn't have any other combat capable officers that have a less 'personal' relationship with the Klingons?
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