Kirk and Starfleet. STVII

[Dart]

So, whilst in the midst of the Nexus, Kirk went back in time seven years, to the day he told Antonia he was going back to starfleet.

I must be missing something because I dont ever remember him leaving. After TOS he was a deck jockey in the Admiralty. Got the ship back in TMP had her decommissioned in TUC.

Ah, so he left then but couldnt stay away.

So there must have been a big gap, in years, between TUC and GENS.

Am I right?

 

[StewMc]

TUC is usually said to have taken place in the same year as the opening of Generations (2293). In the cabin scene Kirk said it was nine years ago (Butler had died seven years ago), which would make the year 2284. Generally TWOK was said to have taken place in 2285 (though this has been argued), meaning Kirk retired sometime after TMP.

 

[Anwar]

There was a 13 or so year gap between TMP and TUC, and in between then Kirk retired, met Antonia, and then left her to go back to Starfleet.

 

[Trekker4747]

Don't you mean TMP and TWK?



I thought Kirk, after the events in TMP, took the new Enterprise out on TWO new 5 year missions?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Trekker4747 said:
I thought Kirk, after the events in TMP, took the new Enterprise out on TWO new 5 year missions?

Never canonically defined, and why did they need to be of precisely five years?

Early Pocket authors, and many 80s fanfic writers, often postulated there was a second mission before TMP. For example, Diane Duane novels had Chapel leave the ship to complete her doctorate studies, replaced by Lia Burke.

After the first Okuda chronology came out, the timeline was suggesting a second mission - perhaps of five years duration - commencing from Kirk's line of "Out there, thataway!" in TMP. He chooses to keep his temporary demotion to captain and essentially completes the mission Will Decker didn't get a chance to achieve.

The recent omnibus of Duane's Rihannsu stories, "The Bloodwing Voyages", has actually rejigged the dates of the first two "Rhiannsu" novels so that the second Kirk mission does happen between TMP and ST II instead.

Then Kirk retired, met Antonia, but was tempted back to Starfleet as an admiral again when Spock was training cadets.

 

[Admiral_Young]

If Jim had retired for a time after the supposed second five yearm mission and they retained his rank of Admiral.

Admiral Young

 

[sbk1234]

I suppose he could have gone into reserve status, inactive.

 

[Ronald Held]

I think that would be the case, since he could be called to duty if needed.

 

[Timo]

On the other hand, what reason do we have to suspect that Kirk would have retired at all?

In ST:GEN, all he says is that he had "gone back to Starfleet" in the real life, and now was going to do differently. This could just mean that he had not dropped everything and married Antonia after that steamy weekend on the cabin, but had instead returned to work on Monday in an orderly fashion, like he did every Monday. There's nothing about actual retirement in the dialogue, now is there?

Of course, since Kirk is a Rear Admiral in ST:TMP and remains a Rear Admiral in ST2:TWoK, one might speculate that his career was put on ice for some time. But being on ice doesn't necessarily mean retirement, since we have seen no evidence of today's "up or out" mentality in the Fleet at any of the Trek eras.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

He was a Rear Admiral in WOK? I thought he was a Vice Admiral there.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Can somebody confirm Jim's rank? What type of admiral was he?

 

[A beaker full of death]

Anwar said:
He was a Rear Admiral in WOK? I thought he was a Vice Admiral there.

He's never referrred to as either. In fact, after TWOK Shatner said "Why'd they go and make me an Admiral? I hope it's not a REAR Admiral."

 

[A beaker full of death]

Timo said:
Of course, since Kirk is a Rear Admiral in ST:TMP and remains a Rear Admiral in ST2:TWoK, one might speculate...

That is speculation. It's never said in the movies.

Peach Wookiee said:
Can somebody confirm Jim's rank? What type of admiral was he?

No. No one can. Because there's nothing on-screen about it.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Darn!

 

[Timo]

Can somebody confirm Jim's rank? What type of admiral was he?

All we can tell canonically is that his sleeve braid in TMP seems to indicate the lowest possible flag rank: just one narrow strip to accompany the broad "I'm a flag officer" strip. Also, his pin in the later movies is the least decorative of all flag pins (save for one or two extras in the ST4 courtroom).

We could still speculate that Kirk's rank in TMP is something like Vice Admiral, and in ST2-4 it could be full Admiral. There would then simply be two or three ranks that are higher than full Admiral (rather than just one, as in the real world), and the more decorative pins of Kirk's colleagues would indicate those.

Our first step in the descent to noncanonicality would be the intentions of the writers and the wardrobe department. I'm not familiar with what the writers may have written on the subject, but costume designer Fletcher very unambiguously intended Kirk's ST2 pin to denote Rear Admiral, and wrote extensive notes on it. Kirk's TMP rank would then be the same or lower, in all likelihood. And since TMP mentions Commodores who would be the next step down from Rear Admiral, yet doesn't address Kirk as Commodore, the logical assumption is that Kirk was a Rear Admiral in TMP, too.

Of course, as long as we lack final proof, we might argue the issue. I for one am convinced that Kirk in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" held the rank of Commander, because nothing to the contrary was ever said.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Basill]

Timo said:
Of course, as long as we lack final proof, we might argue the issue. I for one am convinced that Kirk in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" held the rank of Commander, because nothing to the contrary was ever said.

Timo Saloniemi

Is that because the stripes on the uniforms in this pilot episode were somewhat ambiguous? You either had two, one, or none in that episode it seems, which would differ from the rest of the series and the first film. Kirk had 2, but anyone else with a stripe only had the one, even though Gary Mitchell was supposedly a Lt. Commander (not sure that was in dialog however.) I've heard the commander of a vessel is typically referred to as "captain" regardless of their rank. Did anyone call Kirk "captain" in that episode? I don't have it handy.

He refers to himself as Captain in his actual first log of the deleted scenes but of course that never aired. Its still a cool log entry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW-frXdqUxY

 

[Timo]

Yes, Kirk is called Captain in the episode, but he would be called that even if he had the rank of Ensign. After all, he is the Captain...

It's just a hobbyhorse of mine, but sort of resting on the idea that Kirk was a very young skipper; making him a young commanding officer (that is, Captain) without making him a young officer of O-6 rank (that is, Captain) right away is a nice way to reduce the incredibility of it all.

There can be all sorts of corollaries, such as saying that Kirk and Pike were promoted to full Captain at the same respective ages (justifying the strange statement by Mendez in "The Menagerie" that Kirk and Pike would be "the same age"). If Kirk's regular cuff braid of |:| denotes (Fleet) Captain rank, the timelines would work out pretty well so that Kirk could witness Pike's promotion to that rank after "The Cage", and could himself receive the rank after "Where No Man". Things get far more problematic if we are to assume that Fleet Captain is different from Captain, or that Kirk and Pike were born the same year, or other such more literal interpretations...

That's just an example of the sort of speculation we can have, though. If we stick to "intentions" and other backstage knowledge, then Kirk most definitely was a Rear Admiral throughout the first four movies.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Basill]

Makes sense.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Well to further speculate...wasn't Jim the Cheif of Starfleet Operations at the start of TMP? Perhaps he would require a rank of Rear Admiral for that posistion. Later on during WOK he seems just an Admiral...who is teaching or at least mentoring at the Academy.

Admiral Young

 

[A beaker full of death]

Timo said:

Of course, as long as we lack final proof, we might argue the issue. I for one am convinced that Kirk in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" held the rank of Commander, because nothing to the contrary was ever said.

I think I like that, though there's fanon out there that says one need be a captain or higher to command a starship (as that term was used in TOS).