Kirk's First Command?

[BigJake]

^ Pretty sure all the Writer's Guide says is that the Enterprise is of the largest and most modern "type" of vessel in service. That makes ships of the Enterprise's class the top of the hill, not her specifically. (And this is consistent with the pattern we see in the show: the Constitution and Lexington are commanded by flag officers, for instance, while the Enterprise isn't.)

 

[Warped9]

^ Pretty sure all the Writer's Guide says is that the Enterprise is of the largest and most modern "type" of vessel in service. That makes ships of the Enterprise's class the top of the hill, not her specifically. (And this is consistent with the pattern we see in the show: the Constitution and Lexington are commanded by flag officers, for instance, while the Enterprise isn't.)

That is my point. And it establishes that those ships are certainly more than nothing special.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Go call up CBS, the current people in charge of Star Trek. Ask them what they consider canon if you don't believe the messenger.

My sympathies to the CBS receptionist who takes that call....

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

I've already stated my take on this question.

Here's the link if anyone's interested in looking it over.

 

[Albertese]

I've already stated my take on this question.

Here's the link if anyone's interested in looking it over.

I really like that. I have to ask, though, where does the name USS Ariel for the destroyer come from?

--Alex

 

[BigJake]

I've already stated my take on this question.

Here's the link if anyone's interested in looking it over.

Nice work. Very nice!

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

I've already stated my take on this question.

Here's the link if anyone's interested in looking it over.

I really like that. I have to ask, though, where does the name USS Ariel for the destroyer come from?

--Alex

I admit that I just made it up. Certainly if definitive information ever surfaced it could be swapped out.

Glad you guys like it.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I've already stated my take on this question.

Here's the link if anyone's interested in looking it over.

The only problem I see there is that Kirk was born in 2233 and would be 16 in 2249 not 17.

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

Not necessarily. It all depends on when in the year Kirk's birthday is.

If his birthday is later in the year the when he first reports to the Academy, and also after the events of The Deadly Years, then the timeline still holds together.

The idea that Kirk's birthday is the same as Shat's strikes me as lazy to say the least. But all that really does is make the window smaller anyway.

In any case we have no definitive answer on this as it was never stated on screen, nor was it ever included in the Writer's Guide. Which makes this all speculation.

Still, it can be fun to speculate.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Not necessarily. It all depends on when in the year Kirk's birthday is.

If his birthday is later in the year the when he first reports to the Academy,

From what I've read its in March. So not really late in the year.

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

Yes, but that came from the idea of just using Bill Shatner's birthday for Kirk's. Don't you think the good captain deserves his own birthday?

 

[Wingsley]

Nothing canon.

For all we know, the Starship Sutherland was a sistership (of earlier vintage and design) of the Grissom. Or it could've been a pre-Miranda-type, or something else entirely.

If you go by strictly on-screen spoken dialogue, there is no reference to Kirk having a command prior to Enterprise. It is awkward to continuity; since Kirk took over command from Pike. (Wasn't there the loose suggestion, pre-JJ, that Kirk at least briefly served as Pike's XO? If this were the case, then Kirk commanded his own ship and then transferred to Enterprise to serve under Pike. Although it would be interesting if Pike was serving as a squadron commander once he was promoted to Fleet Captain; Pike could've been using Enterprise as his squardon's flagship and Kirk could've been a captain-in-training at that point.)

Consider how awkward and contradictory the hallway conversation in Starbase 11's medical ward was:

MENDEZ: You ever met Chris Pike?

KIRK: When he was promoted to Fleet Captain.

MENDEZ: About your age. Big, handsome man, vital, active.

KIRK: I took over the Enterprise from him. Spock served with him for several years.

SPOCK: Eleven years, four months, five days.

Pike obviously had to be considerably older than Kirk in order to command the Enterprise 13 years earlier.


I'm confused. If Kirk had a ship of his own prior to the Enterprise, why would he serve under Pike? (Unless we consider the flagship/squardon scenario I suggested above.) Further, if Starfleet employs a "destroyer" class of vessel, wouldn't that contradict the notion that the Federation doesn't believe in warships? Again, it's all vague and not spoken clearly by the characters.

I prefer to think, non-canon of course, that if Kirk commanded a smaller, lesser vessel before joining Fleet Captain Pike on the sqadron flagship Enterprise, he probably commanded a ship like Forbin's Minmus.

 

[Commishsleer]

Making Kirk a "conventional" officer would seem to be counterproductive, as it throws 1960s verisimilitude right down the drain - barely-thirty-somethings don't command the cream of the cream of the cream in any real navy if they ascend a "conventional" career ladder.

Except there's no indication that the TOS Enterprise is in fact the "Crème de la Crème." The Enterprise could be just another medium sized cruiser. In a fleet where such crusiers (in various classes) existed by the hundreds.

We do know that the Enterprise is a older ship, it's the only example of a Trek hero ship that wasn't a new construction.

And she does seem to get a fair number of little shit assignments, along with the occasional glamour job.

Based on uniform insignia, Kirk might have still been the rank of commander when he first took command of the ship (WNMHGB).

Stephen Decatur was 25 years when he made captain, and Star Trek does have a strong connection to the age of sail. Starfleet is also shown to be a dangerous profession.

Constantly creating room at the top?

Modern day US Navy would be like this ...
4 years after commissioning to make Lieutenant
5 plus years to make Lieutenant Commander
4 plus years to Commander.

So while Kirk's advancement was rapid, it wasn't freakishly fast.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the general discussion here.

I thought the Enterprise and its fellow 11 Constitution class vessels were in fact the crème de la crème of Starfleet.

Didn't they have a chart or something of the Constitution class vessels on the wall in Menagerie Part 1? Implying (I know) these are the 'it' ships of the fleet.
If the Constitution class were a minor class with hundreds of equivalent or better ships around then wouldn't the list be a bit bigger?

Several times in TOS it was said that the Enterprise was the only ship between the Federation and disaster. There was never an occasion where the Enterprise called for a better or more important ship.

The Enterprise was actually sent out on very important missions.
In 'Bread and Circuses' it was stated that Starship captains are a very special breed. Not that there are hundreds or so about.

Now I agree that the Enterprise was never mentioned or even implied as the flagship or Kirk the best Captain.
We all just know that he was.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I finally got back to my precious Best of Trek books, and according to "A Brief Look at Captain Kirk's Career" by Leslie Thompson in BoT#2, Jim Kirk's first command was the destroyer Chesty Puller, on which he began as first officer and took over when the captain was injured in a battle with Klingons. It then states he was given command of an experimental prototype (whose description reads like DS9's Defiant) Starstalker, and a few years later another destroyer, the Hia C'hing.

Interestingly, the article speculates that his father, Captain Richard Kirk of the destroyer William Jennings Bryan, died heroically ramming an Orion raider and in doing so saving a Federation colony.

Yes, but that came from the idea of just using Bill Shatner's birthday for Kirk's. Don't you think the good captain deserves his own birthday?

According to ST'09, he was born on stardate 2233.04, which under the new system is YEAR.DAY (1-365) and makes it January 4. Popular fanon is that he was born premature due to the attack, though.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the general discussion here.

I thought the Enterprise and its fellow 11 Constitution class vessels were in fact the crème de la crème of Starfleet.

Didn't they have a chart or something of the Constitution class vessels on the wall in Menagerie Part 1? Implying (I know) these are the 'it' ships of the fleet.

If the Constitution class were a minor class with hundreds of equivalent or better ships around then wouldn't the list be a bit bigger?

I believe the chart is in "Court Martial" and it just shows ships at the starbase and their repair status. There's nothing showing what class of ship they are.

Several times in TOS it was said that the Enterprise was the only ship between the Federation and disaster. There was never an occasion where the Enterprise called for a better or more important ship.

Usually when the Enterprise is the only ship that can save the day it's because it's the only ship in the area.

The Enterprise was actually sent out on very important missions.

Possibly, sisnce we rarely know what missions other ships were sent on, it's hard to judge.

In 'Bread and Circuses' it was stated that Starship captains are a very special breed. Not that there are hundreds or so about.

Well Merrick is a civilian captain who didn't even make the grade to command a "lesser" Starfleet ship, so in this context "Starship" might mean a Starfleet vessel,

 

[Timo]

I'm confused. If Kirk had a ship of his own prior to the Enterprise, why would he serve under Pike?

Why not? Second in command of a big ship could well be a step up from first in command of a small ship.

Further, if Starfleet employs a "destroyer" class of vessel, wouldn't that contradict the notion that the Federation doesn't believe in warships?

That "notion" was sarcastically spat out by an alien disgruntled with the way Starfleet was handling thing, and the resident Starfleeters didn't deign to respond.

OTOH, a frigate or a cruiser is a warship, too, exclusively. That is, in today's navies vessels of such designation have no role other than to kill and destroy. In the future fictional Starfleet, "destroyer" might be a designation for a vessel dedicated to star charting, and "bloodlusty limb-tearer" a common term for an outpost construction ship.

Didn't they have a chart or something of the Constitution class vessels on the wall in Menagerie Part 1? Implying (I know) these are the 'it' ships of the fleet.

Well, no. As said above, they had a list of registry numbers for an unknown collection of ships, implied to be the ships currently being repaired at Starbase 11. If the 'it' ships of the Fleet are all simultaneously under repair, it's a bit unlikely that they would remain 'it' ships for long...

If, OTOH, the list indeed is that of all the starships in Starfleet, and is unrelated to SB 11 and its repair work, we are apparently to assume that there are at least half a dozen different classes of starship, their registries widely separated, and no class features more than a single starship. What kind of vessels fill the registry slots in between, we don't know. Or perhaps "registries" are stardates for the commissioning or launching day, and while NCC-1701 exists, NCC-1702 does not because no ship was commissioned or launched that day?

Several times in TOS it was said that the Enterprise was the only ship between the Federation and disaster. There was never an occasion where the Enterprise called for a better or more important ship.

The disasters did not involve Starfleet sending the Enterprise; they involved the Enterprise stumbling upon the disaster. And once the situation was on, there was no chance to call for backup of any sort, be it massive dreadnoughts or tiny patrol boats; the one thing we know of starships like Kirk's is that they tend to operate solo, and in fact aren't even missed much if they fail to report for, say, half a year.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Commishsleer]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the general discussion here.

I thought the Enterprise and its fellow 11 Constitution class vessels were in fact the crème de la crème of Starfleet.

Didn't they have a chart or something of the Constitution class vessels on the wall in Menagerie Part 1? Implying (I know) these are the 'it' ships of the fleet.

If the Constitution class were a minor class with hundreds of equivalent or better ships around then wouldn't the list be a bit bigger?

I believe the chart is in "Court Martial" and it just shows ships at the starbase and their repair status. There's nothing showing what class of ship they are.

Several times in TOS it was said that the Enterprise was the only ship between the Federation and disaster. There was never an occasion where the Enterprise called for a better or more important ship.

Usually when the Enterprise is the only ship that can save the day it's because it's the only ship in the area.

The Enterprise was actually sent out on very important missions.

Possibly, sisnce we rarely know what missions other ships were sent on, it's hard to judge.

In 'Bread and Circuses' it was stated that Starship captains are a very special breed. Not that there are hundreds or so about.

Well Merrick is a civilian captain who didn't even make the grade to command a "lesser" Starfleet ship, so in this context "Starship" might mean a Starfleet vessel,

You can always say that the Enterprise was the only ship in the area and that may be true because they stated so in the movies so many times.

However the Enterprise was sent to Organia, on 'A Journey to Babel', to the Romulan Border in "A Balance of Terror", went to chase the Gorn ship in "Arena", had to investigate missing solar systems in "The Immunity Syndrome", even had to battle universe-destroying phenomena alone in "The Alternative Factor". Surely in at least one of these cases Starflett would have sent along a better, stronger ship. Or at least sent Kirk in reinforcements.

And if the Enterprise was just one of hundreds of mid-size ships in the fleet why would Captain Kirk going on trial in "Court Martial" shame the whole fleet if he and his ship (with the best first officer in the fleet) were not important?

Or is it racism that puts the "best first officer in the fleet" on the 90th best ship in the fleet?

 

[Warped9]

For some fans they're only happy when when everyone in the Trek universe knows everyone else.

 

[Timo]

Organia was supposed to be an insignificant backwater - Kirk being sent there alone when Klingons sent eight ships suggests that Starfleet didn't think highly of Organia or Kirk.

The Romulan patrol in "BoT" was supposedly some sort of a routine vigil, a rotating duty for ships; Kirk wasn't sent to deal with a crisis, but was taken by surprise when one developed. How much prestige is there in being sent to guard a gate that hasn't been knocked at for a hundred years?

All the other examples are of incidents that happened right next to the Enterprise, too. In "Immunity Syndrome", she was actually the second choice, the Intrepid having already had her turn.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[J.T.B.]

I'm confused. If Kirk had a ship of his own prior to the Enterprise, why would he serve under Pike? (Unless we consider the flagship/squardon scenario I suggested above.)

The way the "Menagerie" dialogue sounds makes it unlikely Kirk and Pike served together. Instead saying they met when Pike was promoted, Kirk would have said something like "I served with him..." At any rate, what's to rule out Kirk having a small command as a lieutenant or lt. commander, before serving as XO on an Enterprise-sized vessel?

Further, if Starfleet employs a "destroyer" class of vessel, wouldn't that contradict the notion that the Federation doesn't believe in warships?

They believe in having them, just not calling them "warships." But the reference in TMoST is of a destroyer equivalent, in modern-day terms, so what the ship type would actually be called is anybody's guess.