False Facts About Star Trek You Always Thought Were True

[Nyotarules]

Wouldn't you like to have someone who'll fight for you and believe in you when nobody else would? Yeah, eventually they have to let you fly and make your own mistakes and face the consequences, but a leg-up at the right time can make a big difference between languishing and soaring.

They received them afterwards or before; but the movie was about how Kirk got the Enterprise and surrounded himself with his crew family. It's the triumphant moment all were waiting for.

Only if you swallowed the plot of cadet becomes Captain overnight..no that element killed my suspension of belief boundaries. And STID showed that Starfleet made a mega mistake. Prime Kirk earned his seat in that chair, NuKirk did not.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I imagine there's more to that decision than met the eye. I can imagine Starfleet Media Relations having a Kirk sub-committee, for instance; they might see it as too good to pass up - two Kirk heroes, one still living.

What they think of George Kirk's sacrifice shows. They named a memorial center after the Kelvin -how many other lost ships can boast that?

 

[Nyotarules]

^Yeah my guess is the in universe reason was it was all a publicity stunt, they used it as recruitment tool to get more pretty boys from Iowa. As Kirk said to Pike after the fight scene, they must be real low on their recruitment numbers for male humans from North America.
Kirk senior sacrificed himself for his ship is memorable, if he was the first Starfleet officer to do so after over 100 years of Starfleet's existence, then that is impressive. The ship gets a shipyard and spy center named after it.
The writers of ST09 did not know the Star Trek franchise, and it showed in the little plotholes. I doubt the USS Kelvin is the first ship lost to Starfleet or Kirk the first to die for his crew, after all there was this little battle called 'The Romulan war' that lasted for 4 years....
(Apart from that the movie is entertaining)

 

[Kor]

Like Saavik, NuKirk was at the point where he had the rank of lieutenant while at the academy. So he jumped from lieutenant to captain, not from a green first-semester cadet to captain.

Kor

 

[Timo]

A secret batcave being named after the Kelvin would actually suggest that loss of the ship was the dullest non-event in recent history, ensuring that nobody would look twice at that doorway let alone attempt to enter...

But that's another "false fact" specific to the 2009 movie manifesting right there. "Nero destroying the Kelvin caused vast policy changes in Starfleet, resulting in all-new ships like the latest Enterprise"... Didn't happen. When we met that "all-new" Starfleet, basically nobody there remembered the Kelvin, not even the man who wrote a dissertation on the subject! Nothing about the new ships appears different from the old ships such as Kelvin, especially as regards the ability to do something about Nero's ship.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[fireproof78]

^Yeah my guess is the in universe reason was it was all a publicity stunt, they used it as recruitment tool to get more pretty boys from Iowa. As Kirk said to Pike after the fight scene, they must be real low on their recruitment numbers for male humans from North America.
Kirk senior sacrificed himself for his ship is memorable, if he was the first Starfleet officer to do so after over 100 years of Starfleet's existence, then that is impressive. The ship gets a shipyard and spy center named after it.
The writers of ST09 did not know the Star Trek franchise, and it showed in the little plotholes. I doubt the USS Kelvin is the first ship lost to Starfleet or Kirk the first to die for his crew, after all there was this little battle called 'The Romulan war' that lasted for 4 years....
(Apart from that movie is entertaining)

And Kirk junior had to learn the meaning of that sacrifice, and we saw that in ST ID.

It isn't that the Kelvin is the first ship Starfleet ever lost, but that it was attacked by a Romulan ship so soon after the Romulan War. That makes both headlines and creates a lot of uncertainty.

For me, the more I rewatch TOS and learn about its production, the more I see of it in Kelvin Trek. Plot holes or not, I think the writers knew more than they will ever be given credit for.

Like Saavik, NuKirk was at the point where he had the rank of lieutenant while at the academy. So he jumped from lieutenant to captain, not from a green first-semester cadet to captain.

Kor

Exactly. Kirk was also placed in the chain of command by becoming Spock's executive officer, by Pike's order, making him able to move within the ranks. The rest is just red tape.

A secret batcave being named after the Kelvin would actually suggest that loss of the ship was the dullest non-event in recent history, ensuring that nobody would look twice at that doorway let alone attempt to enter...

But that's another "false fact" specific to the 2009 movie manifesting right there. "Nero destroying the Kelvin caused vast policy changes in Starfleet, resulting in all-new ships like the latest Enterprise"... Didn't happen. When we met that "all-new" Starfleet, basically nobody there remembered the Kelvin, not even the man who wrote a dissertation on the subject! Nothing about the new ships appears different from the old ships such as Kelvin, especially as regards the ability to do something about Nero's ship.

Timo Saloniemi

I don't buy in to that at all. The fact that Pike didn't remember the "lightning storm in space" part of a dissertation from however long ago doesn't mean "no one" remembers the Kelvin. It just means that what data Starfleet did have was limited.

Since the other Starfleet ships were caught by surprise by the Narada we have no idea what their abilities would be.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Pike was too busy focusing on the fact that the ship had to be scrambled into a response in the middle of Kirk's hearing. He probably had a bazillion things on his mind. If given a moment to pause and think about what Chekov said, the penny would have dropped.

 

[Nyotarules]

Like Saavik, NuKirk was at the point where he had the rank of lieutenant while at the academy. So he jumped from lieutenant to captain, not from a green first-semester cadet to captain.

Kor

Doesn't matter, its still a 'hard for me to believe' jump. In RL no one expects a newly graduated medical student who can call herself Doctor to become Chief of Surgery cos they save the hospital from destruction.
Do cadets from Annapolis expect to be in full command of a ship the day after graduation?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Doesn't matter. In RL no one expects a newly graduated medical student who can call herself Doctor to become Chief of Surgery cos they save the hospital from destruction.
Do cadets from Annapolis expect to be in full command of a ship the day after graduation?

These are not ordinary times. Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures. If a new doctor remembered everything they read and had near-perfect muscle memory, maybe.

 

[Timo]

Since the other Starfleet ships were caught by surprise by the Narada we have no idea what their abilities would be.

Pike's ship had warning. She fared no better or worse than the Kelvin.

Not that being prepared would have been of relevance anyway, because the one thing we learned from the Kelvin fight was that shields (aka preparedness) made no difference.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kor]

Prime Pike's first officer was a lieutenant as well. Apparently, he puts a lot of faith in lieutenants in any universe.

Kor

 

[Nebusj]

Do cadets from Annapolis expect to be in full command of a ship the day after graduation?

I understand that in reality it can take 90 days for a wonder like that to happen.

 

[Prax]

He's a hero who gets a second chance, instead of being given everything.

I'm not going to contest the hero part, nor am I complaining about NuKirk, but... wasn't he bumped up from being an O-0(Cadet) to an O-6(captain) in a single day? That's like a third year cadet at West Point being made a full-bird Colonel before graduation.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

I'm not going to contest the hero part, nor am I complaining about NuKirk, but... wasn't he bumped up from being an O-0(Cadet) to an O-6(captain) in a single day? That's like a third year cadet at West Point being made a full-bird Colonel before graduation.

Given that Kirk was about 22 as "the only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest" I've always assumed that NuKirk was a graduate of another college (probably Iowa State or UI) and his three years at the Academy was OCS & Command School (for immediate promotion to Lieutenant (O2/O3 - Duty Officer/Watch Commander) similar to the course followed by Savvik and maybe Valeris).

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I'm not going to contest the hero part, nor am I complaining about NuKirk, but... wasn't he bumped up from being an O-0(Cadet) to an O-6(captain) in a single day?

nuKirk didn't go from Cadet to Captain, he went from Lieutenant to Captain.

Have a look at the transporter readout screen when they're beaming Kirk and Sulu up from the drill platform. It shows Kirk's rank as Lieutenant.

The way I interpret this is, when Kirk is at the Academy hearing and it's interrupted by the attack on Vulcan, he was about to graduate with the rank of Lieutenant (just like his prime counterpart did). So when nuKirk is initially on the Enterprise, he's a Lieutenant.

So in the end, nuKirk only skips two ranks (LCDR and CDR). Still not very realistic, but it's a lot more so than if he'd gone from Cadet to Captain.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

nuKirk didn't go from Cadet to Captain, he went from Lieutenant to Captain.

Have a look at the transporter readout screen when they're beaming Kirk and Sulu up from the drill platform. It shows Kirk's rank as Lieutenant.

The way I interpret this is, when Kirk is at the Academy hearing and it's interrupted by the attack on Vulcan, he was about to graduate with the rank of Lieutenant (just like his prime counterpart did). So when nuKirk is initially on the Enterprise, he's a Lieutenant.

So in the end, nuKirk only skips two ranks (LCDR and CDR). Still not very realistic, but it's a lot more so than if he'd gone from Cadet to Captain.

And Lieutenants can be First Officers (Number One, Maxwell Burke), so "promoting Kirk to First Officer" meant that Pike was using his authority as Ship's Captain (and Task Force Commodore?) to confirm Kirk's substantive rank of Lieutenant as would have (and did in the Prime Timeline) happen what he passed the Kobayashi Maru (see Savvik).

 

[Kor]

I'm not going to contest the hero part, nor am I complaining about NuKirk, but... wasn't he bumped up from being an O-0(Cadet) to an O-6(captain) in a single day? That's like a third year cadet at West Point being made a full-bird Colonel before graduation.

See my earlier post about how Kirk had reached the rank of Lieutenant at the academy, just like Saavik in TWOK.

Kor

 

[Prax]

OK. I'll update my analogy. A 1st Lieutenant with 0 years tis in the Army is rewarded with the rank of Full Colonel.

Anyways, as I said in my post, I'm not complaining about Kirk, nor his meteoric rise, nor that he's a hero. I'm only responding to the post that said "he was. given a 2nd chance, instead of just given everything."

I wasn't even trying to be a contrarian to Laura, just felt that there was irony to be posted, and irony should never be neglected.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Well, despite what rank and responsibility he gets, he still has to earn the respect of those who feel it happened too soon. And re-earn the respect of those who supported him. Nibiru was Pike's last straw, his waterline, or at least that of whoever his superiors were. But Kirk earned it back, not just receiving command due to Pike's death, but keeping it afterward rather than simply being someone else's interim.

 

[Timo]

It might be noted that Saavik was a Lieutenant (Junior Grade) when taking the no-win teast, while Kirk is plain Lieutenant as per that transporter control screen. If both completed their graduate course first and then attended some sort of a Command School, it would appear Kirk gained one promotion more than Saavik did even at that early juncture.

Also note that wearing the red uniform and frequenting the Academy grounds is not an indication of undergraduate status. All the heroes (Kirk, Sulu, Chekov, McCoy) wear that red uniform at the conclusion of the adventure, and McCoy probably held commisioned rank while participating in Kirk's no-win test already (he is soon seen at relatively high rank, and is never referred to as "cadet" even though Kirk is "cadet" in dialogue and Uhura is both "cadet" and "Lieutenant" in dialogue).

Timo Saloniemi