With Discovery and Strange New Worlds, we know more about Christopher Pike's early life. We know he went to the Academy at the same time as Philippa Georgiou, who was born in 2202. This logically puts Pike's entry into Starfleet before 2233, and we know that from Star Trek Into Darkness that Alexander Marcus, father of Carol Marcus, convinced Pike to join up. That means we can also conclude that Alexander Marcus was a Starfleet officer before 2233.
Admittedly we know nothing else about Alexander Marcus in the prime timeline, including whether he's a member of Section 31 like his Kelvin counterpart. That being said however, short of some DRASTIC personality change that can be explained by the absence of Nero's timeline changes, we can probably assume that at the least he still wasn't a very nice guy who hated Klingons, even if he wasn't awakening augments or building illicit super-starships.
I've been watching the Star Trek movies in in-universe chronological order (so that means I watch the Kelvin movies first as they take place in the late 2250s/early 2260s whereas the TOS films start from the 2270s) and noticed a jarring line in Wrath of Khan. David Marcus, expressing concerns the Genesis Project might be weaponized, says "Every time we have dealings with Starfleet, I get nervous. ...We are dealing with something that could be perverted into a dreadful weapon. Remember that overgrown Boy Scout you used to hang around with? That's exactly the kind of man..."
Carol recognizes that David is talking about Kirk and responds with some nasty one liner about him. But why would David's first example of a Starfleet officer possibly weaponizing Genesis be James Kirk, his father who's had minimal presence in his life because of Carol's demands? Furthermore little of what we see of Kirk in TOS or SNW indicates that he's a warmongering nutjob who'd weaponize Genesis at the first opportunity, so it's even less clear why David would think so. However, David's own maternal grandfather, Alexander Marcus, is EXACTLY the kind of Starfleet nutjob who would weaponize Genesis. Why doesn't David reference him, presumably having way more contact with his maternal grandfather than he would with his father? (Yes I know the real world answer is that Alexander Marcus wasn't invented yet but now that he has been, I'm looking for plausible in-universe answers)
Did Carol raise David without contact with her father as well? Did Prime Alexander Marcus die in Discovery's Klingon War and thus wasn't even alive when David Marcus was born?
Thoughts?
Admittedly we know nothing else about Alexander Marcus in the prime timeline, including whether he's a member of Section 31 like his Kelvin counterpart. That being said however, short of some DRASTIC personality change that can be explained by the absence of Nero's timeline changes, we can probably assume that at the least he still wasn't a very nice guy who hated Klingons, even if he wasn't awakening augments or building illicit super-starships.
I've been watching the Star Trek movies in in-universe chronological order (so that means I watch the Kelvin movies first as they take place in the late 2250s/early 2260s whereas the TOS films start from the 2270s) and noticed a jarring line in Wrath of Khan. David Marcus, expressing concerns the Genesis Project might be weaponized, says "Every time we have dealings with Starfleet, I get nervous. ...We are dealing with something that could be perverted into a dreadful weapon. Remember that overgrown Boy Scout you used to hang around with? That's exactly the kind of man..."
Carol recognizes that David is talking about Kirk and responds with some nasty one liner about him. But why would David's first example of a Starfleet officer possibly weaponizing Genesis be James Kirk, his father who's had minimal presence in his life because of Carol's demands? Furthermore little of what we see of Kirk in TOS or SNW indicates that he's a warmongering nutjob who'd weaponize Genesis at the first opportunity, so it's even less clear why David would think so. However, David's own maternal grandfather, Alexander Marcus, is EXACTLY the kind of Starfleet nutjob who would weaponize Genesis. Why doesn't David reference him, presumably having way more contact with his maternal grandfather than he would with his father? (Yes I know the real world answer is that Alexander Marcus wasn't invented yet but now that he has been, I'm looking for plausible in-universe answers)
Did Carol raise David without contact with her father as well? Did Prime Alexander Marcus die in Discovery's Klingon War and thus wasn't even alive when David Marcus was born?
Thoughts?
