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Kirk's Second Five Year Mission - Lack of Books about it?

My guess is that when Kirk was made an Admiral, he recommended Decker for captain and that Deker was captain during the time Kirk was not aboard and the refit. It does explain why Decker knows the ship so well.
 
^ That's pretty much what TMP establishes:

DECKER: No, Admiral. I don't think you are, not one damn bit. I remember when you recommended me for this command. You told me how envious you were, and how much you hoped you'd find a way to get a starship command again.

(The Lost Years also addresses this, upon the Enterprise's return to Earth.)
 
In theory, any post-TMP story ought to be set there for some plot-specific reason as well . . . and not just because there's a gap in the timeline.
I see why you're saying that, and marketing probably agrees. But I'd like to see more post-TMP stories simply to give the TOS timeline some breathing room. :)
 
In theory, any post-TMP story ought to be set there for some plot-specific reason as well . . . and not just because there's a gap in the timeline.
I see why you're saying that, and marketing probably agrees. But I'd like to see more post-TMP stories simply to give the TOS timeline some breathing room. :)

^ On that note, I wonder if there are any TOS stories that can be retconned (with a little squinting) as occurring during a second 5YM?
 
On that note, I wonder if there are any TOS stories that can be retconned (with a little squinting) as occurring during a second 5YM?

If you mean post-TMP, I used to do that with quite a lot of them in order to make room in the 5YM, before I decided that it was better to accept a book on its own terms than to mentally revise it to suit me. It's generally easy enough if you just tweak Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov's ranks appropriately, or ignore references to uniform colors. Chekov being navigator again rather than security chief is a problem, but the later movies returned him to that role anyway.
 
It's generally easy enough if you just tweak Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov's ranks appropriately, or ignore references to uniform colors. Chekov being navigator again rather than security chief is a problem, but the later movies returned him to that role anyway.
Heck, you sometimes have to do that with stuff that's "officially" post-TMP anyways. :p Even in their The Bloodwing Voyages form, My Enemy, My Ally has the crew in TOS uniforms, while Swordhunt (and maybe MEMA) has Chekov as navigator.
 
On that note, I wonder if there are any TOS stories that can be retconned (with a little squinting) as occurring during a second 5YM?

If you mean post-TMP, I used to do that with quite a lot of them in order to make room in the 5YM, before I decided that it was better to accept a book on its own terms than to mentally revise it to suit me. It's generally easy enough if you just tweak Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov's ranks appropriately, or ignore references to uniform colors.
Dreadnought! (and, to a slightly lesser extent, Battlestations!) being the biggest examples of this phenomenon for myself personally, although I tended to go in the opposite direction with those specific books (having them occur post-TMP).
 
Well, in context with the '80s continuity, Dreadnought! and Battlestations! have to go pre-TMP, because the Rittenhouse scandal from the former is referenced in The Lost Years as a recent event, and a factor behind Nogura's decision to promote Kirk to admiral.

And interpreting TV-era novels as post-TMP is not the opposite direction to what we're discussing, it's the same direction.
 
It's generally easy enough if you just tweak Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov's ranks appropriately, or ignore references to uniform colors. Chekov being navigator again rather than security chief is a problem, but the later movies returned him to that role anyway.
Heck, you sometimes have to do that with stuff that's "officially" post-TMP anyways. :p Even in their The Bloodwing Voyages form, My Enemy, My Ally has the crew in TOS uniforms, while Swordhunt (and maybe MEMA) has Chekov as navigator.

Plus My Enemy, My Ally gives the impression (to me at least) that the new USS Intrepid is a refit Connie while the Enterprise is still the TOS version.
 
I don't buy the idea of a second five-year mission. What I do buy is that The E was just out there doing it's thing without any specific time as for how long to be out there doing it's thing.
 
Plus My Enemy, My Ally gives the impression (to me at least) that the new USS Intrepid is a refit Connie while the Enterprise is still the TOS version.

Yeah, she seemed to be presenting the Intrepid as a prototype for the TMP redesign.
Based on the uniforms and descriptions of engineering and other parts of the ship, I believe Duane originally imagined The Wounded Sky and My Enemy, My Ally to feature the Enterprise from the aborted Phase II TV series. The Intrepid would have been the "final" configuration from TMP.
 
I don't buy the idea of a second five-year mission. What I do buy is that The E was just out there doing it's thing without any specific time as for how long to be out there doing it's thing.


Why not? If April had two five-year missions (2245-2255), and then Pike had 2 five-year missions (2255-2265) on the Enterprise before being promoted to Fleet Captain, why couldn't Kirk have a one-and-a-half five-year missions before being promoted to Admiral?
 
Why not? If April had two five-year missions (2245-2255), and then Pike had 2 five-year missions (2255-2265) on the Enterprise before being promoted to Fleet Captain, why couldn't Kirk have a one-and-a-half five-year missions before being promoted to Admiral?

Only the Okuda timeline mentions Pike having two 5-year missions. It's conjecture, and so is Kirk having a second 5-year mission. As I recall, the novel, Ship Of The Line, mentions Kirk completing a second 5-year mission, but that may be the only novel suggesting that notion.

Kirk's TMP comment of five years dealing with unknowns is in reference to the 5-year mission of deep space exploration, but he could have served other shorter missions between TOS and TMP. Even ST09 and STID show the E serving missions outside of the 5-year mission in deep space.

Also, there could have been multiple year missions between TMP and TWOK.

My point is that not all missions in this era have to be 5-years.
 
^Crucible ignores all other novels, except maybe for minor elements of one or two of DRGIII's own earlier works (though I'm not sure about that). It was designed to tie exclusively into the show itself, to stand alone as an anniversary tale accessible to audiences unfamiliar with the novel continuity.
 
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