Dumbest Log Entry Ever

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

.

 

[BoredShipCapt'n]

Maybe you can edit but not delete a log entry, and Composite Kirk went back through and edited Evil Kirk's entries such as:

"Captain's log, stardate #$%^.*. I'M CAPTAIN KIRK!!!!! Gonna grab the Saurian brandy and go rape Janice. I'M CAPTAIN KIRK!!!!!"

 

[scotpens]

The actual line is:

Captain's Log, stardate 1672.1. Specimen-gathering mission on planet Alpha 177. Unknown to any of us during this time, a duplicate of me, some strange alter ego, had been created by the transporter malfunction.

Kirk is speaking in the past tense. He’s making a log entry about something that happened some time earlier. He did the same thing in “The Man Trap”:

Captain's log, additional entry. Since our mission was routine, we had beamed down to the planet without suspicion. We were unaware each member of the landing party was seeing a different woman, a different Nancy Crater.

So Kirk hasn’t been revising his log entries — and he isn’t psychic.

 

[Midas]

I agree. I always so that as part of his later report, after the incident. I assumed Captain's Logs were submitted to Starfleet.

 

[Christopher]

Right. The original idea behind including the log entries, according to Inside Star Trek, was that the episodes would be presented as flashbacks of a sort, dramatizations of the captain's mission reports about events that had already happened. The idea, so the book said, was that it might help these fantastic stories feel a bit more believable to the audience if they were presented as reports of events that had already occurred. This was actually a common practice in early science fiction -- Gulliver's Travels, the books of Verne and Wells and Burroughs, Dracula, Frankenstein, and the like were routinely presented as "This is a tale that was related to me by so-and-so," to make it feel less like a flight of fancy. (In fact, the process of assembling the narrative of Dracula from firsthand accounts, journals, news reports, etc. is actually a key plot point in the book itself.)

So the early log entries that were presented in the past tense made perfect sense. What didn't make sense was when they later switched to doing them in the present tense, often in contexts where nobody would have the time or opportunity to stop and record a log entry.

(In the spec script I wrote that got me a pitch invitation to DS9 years back, I opened a scene with Sisko's log heard over an establishing shot of the station, and then we cut to the interior where a character said, "If you're finished recording your log now, can we get back to the business at hand?")

 

[Midas]

See, there you go.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I always thought TOS captain's logs were meant more as recaps for channel-hopping viewers who joined partway through. We're not supposed to actually believe Kirk's making an entry during an awkward pause in a crisis situation!

 

[Timo]

What didn't make sense was when they later switched to doing them in the present tense, often in contexts where nobody would have the time or opportunity to stop and record a log entry.

No particular reason why Kirk wouldn't be dictating his after-the-fact logs in the present tense, as opposed to other possible tenses. If the verbal log is supposed to be listened at simultaneously with viewing the visual logs (which we know are being kept, even though they are not as complete as the actual episodes we see), then present tense is probably easier on the ear, really.

The few times Kirk clearly dictates on the field rather than after the fact, directly expressing his lack of situational awareness, he is separated from his starship but not from his communicator or tricorder. These "stardate unknown" dictations make great sense in such situations, as Kirk would wish to leave behind at least some evidence of what had happened regardless of whether he himself managed to re-establish contact with the ship.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Midas]

Now how about the one from the start of Mirror, Mirror? How exactly could he record a log in the transporter room of a parallel Enterprise when he could take no such record back home with him?

 

[BoredShipCapt'n]

Now how about the one from the start of Mirror, Mirror? How exactly could he record a log in the transporter room of a parallel Enterprise when he could take no such record back home with him?

We're hearing his thoughts as he composes it in his mind.

 

[Midas]

You think? I don't know, I've always questioned that part. He suddenly finds himself on a crazy Enterprise, Spock has a beard, people are getting tortured, yet he pauses to mentally compose a Log that cannot possibly be recorded. Don't get me wrong, great episode, but I always chuckle over that part.

 

[scotpens]

Now how about the one from the start of Mirror, Mirror? How exactly could he record a log in the transporter room of a parallel Enterprise when he could take no such record back home with him?

And why would he enter the date/time as “stardate unknown”? If I suddenly found myself in a parallel universe, I’d assume that time still worked the same way.

 

[BoredShipCapt'n]

Embedded brain chip for emergency mental log recording. They go through intense training so they won't forget to do it.

 

[Midas]

Now there's a technology you'd think they'd mention.

 

[Midas]

scotpens

And why would he enter the date/time as “stardate unknown”? If I suddenly found myself in a parallel universe, I’d assume that time still worked the same way.

Good point! I guess the shock of transition to the MU made him forget what time it was.

 

[Timo]

Why not take the simplest possible tack? Kirk dictates the log after returning home - just like he dictates most logs.

Although here I'd argue that Kirk dictates the log in a Mirror recording device some time after the actual events, in the hopes of somehow taking this record back to the Regular universe. Possibly the record fails to get across the looking glass, in which case Kirk has to dictate it again out of memory. But possibly it crosses over easily enough, just like the thoughts of Kirk himself did (even when he swapped clothes and perhaps also bodies with his Mirror counterpart).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Midas]

I get what you're saying. The log was in the present tense though and it's worded as if he's recording it right on the transporter pad. Here's a transcript:

Captain's log, stardate unknown. During an ion storm, my landing party has beamed back to the Enterprise and found it and the personnel aboard changed. The ship is subtly altered physically. Behavior and discipline has become brutal, savage.

See? Notice the use of has instead of had. He clearly hasn't figured out what's going on yet, it's happening to him right that second. I just find it funny, I know it was done for effect and it's a great moment, classic. Just humorous if you think about it.

 

[Timo]

Notice the use of has instead of had.

Many a description is written from the viewpoint of the present tense, even if the writing happens years or centuries after the fact. Especially if it's a narrative to ongoing events. The choice between past and present tense here appears quite arbitrary to me.

He clearly hasn't figured out what's going on yet, it's happening to him right that second.

To the contrary - he dictates with the full knowledge that the ship is "altered" and behavior is "savage", knowledge he doesn't yet have on the transporter pad but will come to possess later on. But he narrates, so he makes it sound as if it were happening there and then. It's no different from saying "Unbeknownst to me, my evil double is having all the fun I never dare have" after the fact.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Midas]

So you're saying later on, after the fact, he recreated for Starfleet record a time when he didn't know the date? Thanks, you just made it even more funny for me.

 

[Eno]

I get what you're saying. The log was in the present tense though and it's worded as if he's recording it right on the transporter pad. Here's a transcript:

Captain's log, stardate unknown. During an ion storm, my landing party has beamed back to the Enterprise and found it and the personnel aboard changed. The ship is subtly altered physically. Behavior and discipline has become brutal, savage.

See? Notice the use of has instead of had. He clearly hasn't figured out what's going on yet, it's happening to him right that second. I just find it funny, I know it was done for effect and it's a great moment, classic. Just humorous if you think about it.

Are we listening to a log, or Kirk composing a draft in his mind? I have worked as a journalist and often ran things through my mind first.