Kirk on first name basis with (almost) every Commodore

p216 in the book.

 

As far as Kirk knowing Pike, they would have at least met during the change-of-command ceremony when Kirk replaced Pike as USS Enterprise CO.

 

Kirk knew how to suck up when the right moment showed itself I guess!
JB

 

McCoy calls Kirk Jim more often than he calls him Captain! While Spock only calls him Jim in extreme stressful moments! Scotty even called him Jim but only the once in Mirror, Mirror when he was trying to beam the three crewmembers back to the original universe thereby sacrificing himself but not knowing that bearded Spock was on his way down to help out the situation!
JB

 

Kirk states in "The Menagerie" that he met Pike when Pike was promoted to fleet captain.

 

Which is the reason for the change-of-command. Pike is promoted to Fleet Captain and Kirk takes command of the Enterprise, and Kirk meets Pike when that happens. The promotions take place at the same time. I was answering a post as to if they knew each other.

 

You are interpreting words with two or more possible meanings as though they have only one possible meaning, and so you are incorrectly limiting the options avalable for someone creating a Star Trek chronology.

I remind you of what the computer said about Captain KIrk in "Court Martial":

The Computer separates Kirk's service rank of captain, his position of starship command, and his current assignment, the USS Enterprise. That implies that the three can be separated, and my be separated in the careers of Starfleet officers.

It is easy to see that a Starfleet Officer could hve the rank of captain wihtout commanding a starship or any othr ship - in "the Deadly Years" Stocker Rose to the rank of commondore without ever commanding a ship. And even if captain was the normal rank for someone with the position of star ship commander, it would probably be possible for being sof higher or lower rank to sometimes be asssigned to command starships.

As an example, in the 19th century US Army, during eh Civil war, a military department -,a territorial command of all the garrisons and troops stationed in one or more states and territoris and often including a field armyy - was usually commanderd by a major general. And the res to fthe time a miiltary department was considered to be a brigadier general's proper command. But the shortage of brigadier generals meant that colonels commanded departments about as often as brigadier generals did, and major generals and lieutenant cololels sometimes commanded departments.

So I can imagine that when Pike was promoted to fleet captain, his status went from "Service rank, Captain. Position starship command. Current assignment USS Enterprise." to "Service rank, Captain. Position starship command. Current assignment USS Enterprise.",a nd that Pike continued to be the commander of the USS Enteprise until transferred to another assignment and possibly another position.

To quite from "The Menagerie Part 1"

Kirk says that he met PIke when Pike was promoted to Fleet Captain. KIrk doesn't say that He met Pkke when he replaced PIke as captain of the Enterprise. Those could have been two separate events instead of one single event.

In "Whom Gods Destory" Garth's rank seems to be fleet captain.

Andw hat was the size of Flelet cCptain Garth's command?

Garth's command is described as a single crew, and presumably of a single starship. Garth thinks that he can defeat his former command with one starship. Garth says the men in this room will be his new crew. There were 15 inmates, and Marta was the only female:

So that makes 14 men, plus possibly Kirk and/or Spock, for a total of 14 to 16 men in the planned crew. And Garth probably hopes to convert some of the approximately 430 people in the Enterprise crew to his cause, and kill and/or strand the rest on Elba II..

In "The Ultimate Computer"

And:

That implies that more than 20 people would normally be required to runa starship.

But in Kirk, Scott, and Chekov are able to run the Enterprise after Scott has automated its systems. So presumably Garth is planning something similar.

Anyway, there is some evidence that Fleet Captain Garth's formerr command was a single starship, and so possibly Christopehr PIke remained in command of a single starship, the Enterprise, for some time after being promoted to fleet captain.

You may remember Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, 1964-1968, whee Admiral Harriman Nelson was in command of the missions of the submarine Seaview, whil the submarine itself was commanded by Captain Crane, with Commander Morton as Crane's second-in-command.

In "The Doomsday Machine" the starship Constellation is commanded by Commodore Matt Decker, with no mention of a captain aboard. .I believe that the only other Constellatin oiffcer named was Science Officer Masada:

In naval terminology "captain" has two meanings:

1) An officer with the rank of captain, equivalent to a colonel in the army.

or:

2) The officer, of whatever rank, in command of a vessel, the captain in the sens of the "skipper" or comamnding officcer.

They play a log from the Constellation:

So Decker made a captain's log on the Constellation: Since Decker was a commodore instead of a captain in rank, he must have been a captain in the second sense, the person assigned to command the vessel. That means Commodore Decker was no tlike Admiral Nelson in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, commanding the mission while a captain commanded the ship, but the mission commander and ship commander in one person.

If the next highest officier on the Constellation, a commander or lieutenent commander or lieutenant, had been the commanding officer instead of the absent captain, They would have made a captain's or commanding officer's log instead of Decker, and noted that they commanded (under Decker) in the absence of the assigned captain. So Commodore Decker must have been the assigned captain of the Constellation.

If a commodore, higher than a fleet captain, can be assigned as the captain (officer in command) of a single starship, a fleet captain can be assigned as the captain (officer in command) of a single starship.

So it is perfectly possible that PIke was promoted to fleet captain and KIrk met him then, and Pike cotinued to command the Enterprise for a time. and then was transferred to another assignment, and nUmber One, or Spock, or someon, was in temporary command of the Enterprise while it traveled to meet Kirk who then took over as the assigned captain of the Enterprise from the absent Pike. If the officer in tempoarary commandof the Enterprise was not assigned by Starfleet Command as the captain of the Enterpris Kirk would have replaced the absent PIke as captain, not the officer in tempoary command, and he date of Kirk's command would be the date he was assigned by Starfleet Command,and not the date he arrived on the Enterprise.

So any Star Trak chronologist who needs to make Kirk meet Pike when PIke is promoted to fleet Captain, and then take over command of the Enterprise from PIke at a later date, when PIke s not actually present on the Enterprise, can do so if that is necessary to make their chronology work.

 

I guess you are stretching this promotion thing out to build a time frame where Kirk could have more time to get "familiar" with Pike and be on a first name basis. Right? Or, Kirk and Pike became friendly on the day they met:

Kirk: Congratulations on your promotion, Captain Pike.
Pike: And congratulations on your promotion, Captain Kirk. Perhaps you'll call me Chris, Captain. With so many titles around, we're not going to be sure who's talking to who. <edit. yes, I took this dialog from Dagger of the Mind >
Kirk: Please call me Jim. Taking over the Enterprise will be a big challenge. (etc. etc.)​

 

You are attempting to apply real world explanations on a fictional science fiction TV show. A pointless endeavor.

 

An interesting point, as it suggests that there were about three years when Spock wasn't serving with Pike. A current series possibly accounts for some of that, but he maybe had another 18 months away, on training courses or other ships.
EDIT: This is two years into Kirk's command, so explained already.

 

Have folks given real world examples of this sort of "familiarity"?

 

Spock needed to be on Earth for some period of time around 2261 to start a relationship with Leila Kalomi. How long is unknown, but the important point is that he is on Earth doing something and not in deep space on the Enterprise.

 

Why couldn't Spock just be on earth while the Enterprise gets an update and change of crew? From what we saw in TMP that could take some time and the five year mission may not have been registered at that time! Plus Leila might have just fallen for Spock and he just didn't notice. She may also have climbed aboard the first colony ship headed to the stars after she failed to make an impression upon him too!
JB

 

And if they had, what would be the point? What would that prove? We're still talking about fictional interactions between characters on a fictional TV show set in a fictional future.
People always seem like they want to apply real-world explanations to what they see as inconsistencies or problems on TV shows. Just watch the damn thing and don't analyze it to death.

 

Have you met Star Trek fans. Analyze to death is how they show love...or something.

I don't understand it myself. It's like taking your loved one or significant other and saying "Here's the ways I love you-you have acne, your posture isn't great, and the way you sneeze is the most annoying thing in the world."

 

It's actually okay to analyze things, including a television program. It's also okay not to do so. Neither approach is patently ridiculous, worthy of scorn, or frivolous. Each approach is meritorious, and every individual can make and take comfort in their own choice.

 

Scorn? No. Confusion? Yes. Bewilderment? Affirmative. Perplexing? Indeed. Puzzling? Absolutely.

 

To me it seems possible to borrow an explanation from another universe: Kirk as seen in the 1st Pilot could be a relief Captain for Pike, who is now Fleet Captain and would be in command of the Enterprise but it not for some reason. Then, with the visual changes for the series, Kirk is officially the Captain.

Regarding Decker, the acting suggests familiarity to me, as if Kirk knew him for a while. Again, I will borrow an idea from another show, in this case, TNG. Numerous early TNG episodes suggest the USS Hood is about a week away (too far to help in the event of a sudden catastrophe, but able to eventaully arrive as backup or at least live to tell the tale). As I understand it, some fans believe that a Fleet Captain has a ship of his/her own, but would command a "task force," or small fleet, in the event one was needed. If a Commodore could do this, too, then Decker could be the commander of the Constellation, but would lead the fleet of nearby ships if one were assembled, which almost never happened in TOS.

For Captian Garth, the situation could be similar: He had one crew and one ship, but there were other ships with their own commanders working under his direction. I've always viewed the episode this way. It really creates nice drama to the backstory. Garth has a crew he wants to turn against the people of Antos 4, but they won't, not only because he is losing his sanity but because 3 (arbitrary number) other ships are nearby, ready to start a starship-on-starship shootout if Garth's ship goes rogue and tries to destroy a planet.

 

Only twice in TOS.
First, in Errand of Mercy when the Enterprise (still under command of Lt. Sulu for some reason) returned as part of a fleet assembled to fight the Klingon fleet at Organia.

We know that there is already an assembled Starfleet fleet not far away. We have no idea who is command of the fleet, but I assume it was, more likely, an Admiral since these pre-war activities seem to be organized by Starfleet Command. In any case, this fleet commander would be commanding from his flagship which doesn't appear to be the Enterprise. Later in Season Two, they make a distinction between this fleet (under an Admiral?) and an attack force (under a Commodore).
Second, in The Ultimate Computer when Commodore Wesley showed up in command of an attack force of four Starships for war games.

Commodore Wesley was also in command of one the Starships, namely the Lexington.

Less defined, Kirk is communicating with Starfleet Command to return to the space station which makes it seem more likely that they are at two different locations. Granted, there is a chance that Starfleet Command is located on the space station which would put the exercise under Commodore Enwright. In either case, Kirk is not communicating with Commodore Wesley, so, this means he is not in command of the overall exercise rather someone at Starfleet Command.