Yep. That was fun.
Number One
- Thread starter Bry_Sinclair
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Guess she got promoted and given a command of her own,and went off exploring strange new worlds and retired from the service after a long time as captain.
OTOH, if we choose to believe that "Turnabout Intruder" establishes that there are no female starship captains in Kirk's time and the time immediately preceding it, we must assume that Pike's XO hit some sort of a glass ceiling or a phaser blast or some other career-compromising event...
Or then we can assume that there are just twelve starship captains in the era, that three of them used to be women back when Pike's former XO was one, and that they then rapidly moved on to higher rank and position and the current boys-only club is a statistical fluke.
Or then we can drop the idea that Janice Lester's rantings in that episode referred to actual Starfleet personnel policies, and decide that there were plenty of female starship captains at the time, but their "world" had no place for Janice, exactly like she says.
Timo Saloniemi
Or then we can assume that there are just twelve starship captains in the era, that three of them used to be women back when Pike's former XO was one, and that they then rapidly moved on to higher rank and position and the current boys-only club is a statistical fluke.
Or then we can drop the idea that Janice Lester's rantings in that episode referred to actual Starfleet personnel policies, and decide that there were plenty of female starship captains at the time, but their "world" had no place for Janice, exactly like she says.
Timo Saloniemi
Wasn't she quite mad in that episode?
On the dedication plaque, wasn't the Enterprise known as a "Starship-Class". Perhaps there wasn't a woman in command of a Constitution-Class ship, but there would definately be female Captain's in the fleet in the 2260s. Unless they had served their time in the 'big chair' and were now all admirals.
I don't think those rationalizations are needed. What Lester said was "Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women" - a personal accusation at Kirk, not at Starfleet.
Had the roles been reversed and Kirk was the sad Academy dropout and Lester the successful starship captain, Kirk would naturally have said "Your world of starship captains doesn't admit men"... Quite regarldess of how many men or women served as starship captains.
Timo Saloniemi
Had the roles been reversed and Kirk was the sad Academy dropout and Lester the successful starship captain, Kirk would naturally have said "Your world of starship captains doesn't admit men"... Quite regarldess of how many men or women served as starship captains.
Timo Saloniemi
And it is ... ?
Read post number 32.
Thought her name was Morgan Primus?
I don't remember the exact details now, but there was some reason she changed it from Lefler.
This thread has made me want to read the New Frontier series all the way through. I've only read the initial four, and that was back in 1999.
Thing is,
Timo Saloniemi
Morgan Primus supposedly was immortal; she got this Robin Lefter kid at a late age (and I mean about thousand and two or so), so obviously she had been through a number of surnames, too. Her undying nature made her averse to long relationships, so she walked out of the Lefter marriage soon enough, and sitcom'ish hilarity ensued.
Timo Saloniemi
One of the many reasons why Star Trek should have restraining order against Peter David.
^ 
Amen!
Both. A dropped scene also had Commander Chapel directing Sarek into the Council meeting.
Peter David supposedly had no intention of using Lefler as a name for Morgan Primus. That was added to the Pike "Captain's Table" novel by Jerry Oltion, who thought he was helping out David's plotline/running gag.
Much earlier, Brad Ferguson wrote a "The Lost Years Saga" novel called "A Flag Full of Stars", set before ST:TMP, and two guest commentators at a commemoration of the old NASA space program were an elderly Captain April (of TAS) and a salt-and-pepper-haired Number One. The then-Star Trek Office required that the character not be revealed to be Number One, so the final manuscript calls her Admiral Timothea Rogers. Ferguson used to have his original version for download on his now-defunct website.
You mean DC Fontana's "Vulcan's Glory".
A human colony world called Ilyria.
Which was Majel Barrett's personal take on it, too. Back when she got the role, she developed her own back story, as actors often do to help get "into" character, though in the knowledge that the TV writers may overrule that story. Fontana incorporated Barrett's ideas into the novel.
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It's still an open question whether or not Majel passed on this idea to Gene, and if so, how seriously he took it.
I read an interview with Majel where she said she did it for herself. But I do seem to recall that GR would give a similar response, if pressed, as to the mystery of Number One's name. He rather liked that it was a mystery. If a colony world was something he intended from the start, though, it would have been in his original writers' bible.
Actually a bit more than that is revealed based on The Keeper's comment to Kirk at the end of the episode:
"Mr. Spock had related to us your strength of will. It was thought that the fiction of a court martial would keep you from too-soon regaining control of your vessel."
I take from this that Spock was in cahoots with the Talosians but that he was unaware that the court martial was fiction based on the illusion of Commodore Mendez being with Kirk on the shutlecraft and hence on the Enterprise.
Its a dumb idea no matter who cam up with it. "Number One" is obviously a nickname for a ship's First Officer/XO. I hate it when people come up with explanations for things that don't need explaining (I'm also reminded of how Peter David came up with an explanation of how a ship's "Executive Officer" and "First Officer" differ, when both are just alternate terms for the same position....)
What book was that in and what was his reason? I've never given it much thought, though at some point in the past I might have said "executive officer" was like Riker, Chakotay in that they didn't have any other duty and "first officer" was like Spock or T'Pol in that they had a secondary function, but that's just my demented little mind.
Well, as an avid follower of TOS and TAS as a result of the TOS movies, having read all the old stuff such as "The Making of Star Trek", "World of Star Trek", "Star Trek Lives!", "Letters to Star Trek", many "Starlog" magazines, "Best of Trek" compilations, and Lincoln Enterprises' editions of all the writers' bibles, I can say the very first time the term "Number One" as a nickname for First Officer was decribed was in the Season One writers' bible for TNG, and media releases of the day.
When The Cage's "Number One" was called "Number One" the average ST fan had no idea it was a navy nickname for a position.
So not so "obviously" at all. Obvious to new TNG fans in 1987, yes, but not necessarily to TOS viewers in the 60s, or the ones who found fandom in the 70s and early 80s.
Peter David had Shelby as first officer of Excalibur in "New Frontier", and Mueller was executive officer. PAD essentially had the EO in charge of the night shift. They performed similar duties, but the FO could overall the EO, IIRC.
The term "executive officer" was used in ST:TMP, when Will Decker was displaced as captain by Admiral Kirk. In that context, we never learned who Decker's first officer was supposed to be. Scotty? Sulu? Was he also demoted, or is Decker's position as "executive" here equivalent to "extra" officer, as it was until recently in Australian schools. We had principals, deputy principals, assistant principals and executive teachers (ie. higher than a classroom teacher, and with supervisory/disciplinary duties), and all of those people in promotion positions were members of the school "executive".
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I think the phrasing "Your world of starship captains doesn't admit husbands" flows a bit better. If only Lester had said "wives" we could have avoided 40 years of debate.
No...it's not. I don't know how old you are, but even in the 60's, people with numbers after their name were still considered "futuristic". The people in the episode "A Taste Of Armageddon" had numbers after their name.
IIRC, Logan in the movie "Logan's Run" was properly named Logan-5, and that was in the 70's.
And as someone who grew up in this time period, and who was unaware of any navy tradition, the name "Number One" made perfect sense to me and plenty others, as the name of someone from an alien world of the future.
And as far as I'm concerned, that's still the case for me.
Anan-7, Mea-3
Not to mention Gary Seven, 11, 00, 10 and 01, Third of Five and Seven of Nine.
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