Before James T. Kirk joined Starfleet had other Kirk family members been in Starfleet?
JDW
JDW
Kirk family members in Starfleet?
- Thread starter James Wright
- Start date
Yup. Various novels have indeed postulated that Kirk's dad was a Starfleet officer, and also that his nephew Peter would become one. But the episodes and movies might indicate the opposite, really, as there's a prominent lack of references to Kirk's pedigree whenever he gets in trouble with his superiors. The luminous Starfleet fathers of, say, Tom Paris and Kate Janeway do get the spotlight.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
I suppose that since this is largely a discussion of Kirk it should be moved to TOS. 
Not sure about confirmation but rumor has it that Kirk's father is first officer of the USS Kelvin.
I'd rather not see that angle. If that happened, you would have thought that sometime during TOS he would have mentioned "back when my Dad was on this ship"....but heck, he never mentioned his dad at all.
But that's not really realistic in a military setup: family would be brought up quite frequently in the discussions, unless there were very special circumstances.
In case of TOS, we see some such circumstances. Spock hates his father and thus stays completely mum about him. McCoy killed his, and has a bitter divorce behind him as well. Kirk's parents were possibly murdered by Kodos the Executioner, and his brother is dead by the end of the first season. So the three would know never to touch the issue amongst themselves.
But other heroes with Starfleet families do bring up the issue. The senior Janeway and Paris were prominent in VOY, as their influence on their offspring was tangibly present in the everyday Starfleet life of said kids. DS9 heroes also all discuss their parents - none of whom are Starfleet. No Starfleet pedigrees for the ENT heroes, either, although Reed has a military family, a fact we're never let to forget.
One might actually postulate that Starfleet mainly draws in people who don't have a Starfleet background: adventurers rather than soldiers, research scientists rather than combat engineers. All the more reason to highlight those few Starfleet families...
Timo Saloniemi
In case of TOS, we see some such circumstances. Spock hates his father and thus stays completely mum about him. McCoy killed his, and has a bitter divorce behind him as well. Kirk's parents were possibly murdered by Kodos the Executioner, and his brother is dead by the end of the first season. So the three would know never to touch the issue amongst themselves.
But other heroes with Starfleet families do bring up the issue. The senior Janeway and Paris were prominent in VOY, as their influence on their offspring was tangibly present in the everyday Starfleet life of said kids. DS9 heroes also all discuss their parents - none of whom are Starfleet. No Starfleet pedigrees for the ENT heroes, either, although Reed has a military family, a fact we're never let to forget.
One might actually postulate that Starfleet mainly draws in people who don't have a Starfleet background: adventurers rather than soldiers, research scientists rather than combat engineers. All the more reason to highlight those few Starfleet families...
Timo Saloniemi
I assume you are being facetious. Spock never hated his father.
The reason families weren't brought up much is because TOS was plot driven, rather than character driven - and to the extent it was character-driven, it was generally the guest characters, as theirs were the lives that had to go through hell (as is the nature of drama).
Another factor: TOS depicted adult professionals. Such people rarely have reason to bring up familial matters. It's not like the millenials of today, whose parents have to intervene with the kids' bosses to ensure little Johnny gets the corner office, and it's not like the high school antics of TNG where everyone knew each other's business and more time was spent giggling and gossiping than exploring the galaxy.
A lot of people don't get that, especially those with no grounding in drama (including a lot of the writing staff of TNG). TOS (through its writers and, largely, its actors) depicted characters brilliantly, but it was never about them. At the time, the idea was laughable. Still is.
It's just a school of thought, is all. Others might find it ridiculous that drama be wrought from artificially scripted events that in no way reflect the way things happen in the real world.
Much of television storytelling is still held prisoner to the conventions of theater, which is about as silly as insisting that theater still remain true to the conventions of religious ceremony. Soap is something made possible by television, and is a valid art form on its own as such; just because it could never have been done on the stage or the silver screen doesn't mean it should be held in lesser esteem. Otherwise, we could just categorically declare all televised entertainment dramatically invalid for abandoning a couple of the original theatrical traditions.
Timo Saloniemi
Much of television storytelling is still held prisoner to the conventions of theater, which is about as silly as insisting that theater still remain true to the conventions of religious ceremony. Soap is something made possible by television, and is a valid art form on its own as such; just because it could never have been done on the stage or the silver screen doesn't mean it should be held in lesser esteem. Otherwise, we could just categorically declare all televised entertainment dramatically invalid for abandoning a couple of the original theatrical traditions.
Timo Saloniemi
That'd be Diane Carey's Best Destiny, where young Jimmy goes to space with his dad George and his dad's commanding officer, Captain Robert April.
It's a sequel of sorts to Carey's Final Frontier where George Kirk and Robert April have adventures aboard the Enterprise just before her official commissioning. In Best Destiny, there isn't much role for the Enterprise, but we learn quite a bit about what Jim Kirk's childhood was like.
That is, if we choose to believe in that story. Probably the next movie will be written in a way that contradicts at least part of that, after which I personally will go for the onscreen version because I'm a "canon" person of sorts. But Carey's writing isn't all that bad (in those two books at any rate), and her Jim Kirk is... plausible at least.
Timo Saloniemi
It's a sequel of sorts to Carey's Final Frontier where George Kirk and Robert April have adventures aboard the Enterprise just before her official commissioning. In Best Destiny, there isn't much role for the Enterprise, but we learn quite a bit about what Jim Kirk's childhood was like.
That is, if we choose to believe in that story. Probably the next movie will be written in a way that contradicts at least part of that, after which I personally will go for the onscreen version because I'm a "canon" person of sorts. But Carey's writing isn't all that bad (in those two books at any rate), and her Jim Kirk is... plausible at least.
Timo Saloniemi
Which will be commanded by Faran Tahir's character (Captain Robau).
As for Kirk's parents: There's no indication Kodos killed them. Kirk was on Tarsus IV, but we have no idea if his mom or dad were. He could have been visiting other family members there.
Drama is an art form, and has been since the Greeks invented it. It has structure. Experimenting with that structure is fine if one first knows what the elements of structure are. That is as far removed from the real world as can be. As it should be. I see no purpose in fictionalized random events without structure or purpose. We all have lives.
Held prisoner? Most tv hasn't been theatrical in years, unfortunately. Most "writers" today do simply show a series of random events. The story arc was an interesting concept, but that has now largely simply given rise to lazy, uneducated, formless, purposeless writing.
There's a reason Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides are still performed. And they had little to do with religious ceremony.
You can't be serious. See "purposeless writing," above.
Now you're on to something.
btw, let's be clear about our terminology: drama is a particular, defined theatrical form, as are tragedy, satire and comedy (hence my reference to formlessness above). By definition, drama has a structure.
