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Phasers & Stilettos

Arpy

Arpy

Vice Admiral
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So I was recently thinking about my old Playmates action figures from the 90’s and somehow got to imagining a line of female action figures from TOS. Well, I ended taking a deep dive into the subject and came up with:

New! From The Future is Female Toys (😉), take on the Three Year Mission and collect a new 2-pack celebrating the women of TOS every month:

1. Edith Keeler & Earth Kirk
2. Elaan of Troyius & Blue Dude
3. Marta & Flamboyant Andorian
4. Sylvia & Sayana
5. Nona & Mugato
6. Marlena Moreau & Mirror Uhura
7. Dr. Miranda Jones & Dr. Ann Mulhall
8. T’Pau & T’Pring
9. Andrea & Ruk
10. Roberta Lincoln & Gary 7 w/Cat
11. Rayna Kapec & Flint
12. Elizabeth Dehner & Gary Michell
13. Ruth & Rabbitt
14. Mara & Miramanee
15. Losira & Losira
16. Ariel Shaw & Commodore Stone
17. Gem & Vian
18. Droxine & Vanna
19. Carolyn Palamas & Apollo
20. Dr. Helen Noel & Mea 3
21. Tonia Barrows & Princess Tonia Barrows
22. Zarabeth & Leila Kalomi
23. Vina & Pike
24. Number One & Talosian
25. Colt & Orion Vina
26. Mira Romaine & Kyle
27. Amanda & Sarek
28. Chapel & M’Benga
29. Rand & Shahna
30. Enterprise & Scotty
31. Horta & Kirk
32. Lenore & Chekov
33. Uhura & Early Uhura in Gold
34. Miss Eleen & McCoy
35. Salt Vampire & Sulu
36. Female Romulan Commander & Spock

Which ones are your favorites? Which others would you add to a Year Four?
 
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I think, if money weren’t and issue, I’d be most interested in:

1. Uhura
2. Enterprise
3. Horta
4. Sayana (red girl from “The Apple”)
5. Losira
6. Zarabeth
7. Orion Vina
8. Andrea
9. Dr. Ann Mulhall (Diane Muldaur)
10. Edith Keeler
11. Number One
12. Colt
13. Female Romulan Commander

It’s been an interesting discovery process for me going through these. I wouldn’t have expected to want Sayana. I haven’t watched “The Apple” in decades, but I found her reminding me of young carefree love and liking that. Zarabeth is from an episode I don’t care for, for McCoy’s comments, but I just find her so tragic. She inspires my inner protector, like the cogenitor did in ENT. Losira I thought was super cheesy but hey that’s TOS, ya gotta love it. And Lt. Cmmndr. Dr. Ann Mulhal, the astrobiologist, I wanted as the highest ranking woman we saw in TOS, aside from Number One (of equal rank) in the flashbacks in “The Menagerie.”
 
Arpy said:
And Lt. Cmmndr. Dr. Ann Mulhal, the astrobiologist, I wanted as the highest ranking woman we saw in TOS, aside from Number One (of equal rank) in the flashbacks in “The Menagerie.”
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Sorry, but Number One was only a lieutenant at that time.

Other two packs can be:
Lieutenant McGivers & Khan
Crazy Lazarus & Sane Lazarus (with changeable facial hair)
Yeoman Smith & fictional Yeoman Jones
Good Kirk & Evil Kirk (also with gentile alien dog & vicious alien dog)
Commissioner Nancy Hedford & Zefram Cochrane
Kelinda & Yeoman Thompson (with distilled down block)
Deela & the other unnamed female Scalosian
Angela Martine & Angela Teller & Angela Lysa (the rare triple pack)
and of course, Thalassa & Henoch (both in globe form).
 
Henoch said:
Sorry, but Number One was only a lieutenant at that time.

Other two packs can be:
Lieutenant McGivers & Khan
Crazy Lazarus & Sane Lazarus (with changeable facial hair)
Yeoman Smith & fictional Yeoman Jones
Good Kirk & Evil Kirk (also with gentile alien dog & vicious alien dog)
Commissioner Nancy Hedford & Zefram Cochrane
Kelinda & Yeoman Thompson (with distilled down block)
Deela & the other unnamed female Scalosian
Angela Martine & Angela Teller & Angela Lysa (the rare triple pack)
and of course, Thalassa & Henoch (both in globe form).
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Oooh there’s AI hallucinating again. I asked it what her rank was in “The Cage” and it gave me the wrong one. Thanks for the correction. It does beg the question why a lieutenant alone is second in command of a large spacecraft of hundreds of people?

Unless the Enterprise was meant to be a smaller one for its fleet? It is rather small compared to others in scifi (Galaxy Class, Star Destroyer, Earth Force cruiser, Farscape, Stargate, etc), and “Captain” Kirk’s stripes are those of a lieutenant commander…was the idea early on other than what it developed into later?

But back to the subject at hand. I like your choices. The McGivers/Khan 2-set esp is a great one for Year Four. Not sure how I feel about the Lazaruseses and the Kirks. The theme for this line is celebrating the women of TOS and I’d like to play with it further before branching off to others, though I do like those for another line.

Looks like I trimmed my initial list when I made it because I had Deela on it earlier with a “slow phaser” accessory! :lol:
 
Arpy said:
Oooh there’s AI hallucinating again. I asked it what her rank was in “The Cage” and it gave me the wrong one. Thanks for the correction. It does beg the question why a lieutenant alone is second in command of a large spacecraft of hundreds of people?
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For most of the history of organised navies, "Lieutenant Commander" wasn't a rank, it was a posting - a Lieutenant with an independent command. This evolves into just "Commander" and then officer inflation recreates Lieutenant Commander as a junior Commander in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Meanwhile, an 18th century 74 gun ship-of-the-line had, at its smallest, more than double the Cage era crew of 200 souls the Enterprise had, and the second in command of that ship was a Lieutenant. (74s would have between 500 and 900 souls aboard, depending on the time period and the specific ship. They also would have had less than 10 commissioned officers aboard, including the Captain but excluding Midshipmen, and somewhere between 4 and 10 warrant officers.)

In "The Cage," all officers have the same insignia, a single stripe; if we pretend the WNMHGB system existed during the Cage, too, then there's only two stripes for the Captain and one stripe for everyone else. It's pretty clear that during the pilots, Roddenberry was still very much in "Hornblower in space" mode and just had a Captain and Lieutenants for officers. If we ignore shows produced after TOS, we can speculate that early on Star Fleet had a very truncated rank structure that got expanded during Kirk's captaincy.

By series production, they've adopted the then-standard ranks of the US Navy (with the possible exception of Lieutenant, Junior Grade - if memory serves no-one with this rank ever actually appears in TOS) but, because Roddenberry didn't want the uniforms to look too military, he set the Captain Rank at 2 and a half stripes, and scaled everything else from that. This detail is attested to in several behind the scenes books and seems pretty reliable.
 
Vagabond Elf said:
(with the possible exception of Lieutenant, Junior Grade - if memory serves no-one with this rank ever actually appears in TOS)
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I suspect that Joe Tormolen from The Naked Time was Lt.JG based on the single dashed stripe on his sleeve:
1771257953339.png
 
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Henoch said:
I suspect that Joe Tormolen from The Naked Time was Lt.JG based on the single dashed strip on his sleeve:
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It's costumes with the single half-stripe that lead people to conclude a JLt. rank exists, but I don't think it's ever explicitly used. Though of course people would just say "Lootenant" in everyday speech - is Joe there ever addressed or referred to by rank? I can't remember now.
 
Vagabond Elf said:
It's costumes with the single half-stripe that lead people to conclude a JLt. rank exists, but I don't think it's ever explicitly used. Though of course people would just say "Lootenant" in everyday speech - is Joe there ever addressed or referred to by rank? I can't remember now.
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Rank not given in episode; but Memory Alpha lists him as:
Lieutenant jg Joe Tormolen
Species: Human
Affiliation: Federation Starfleet
Rank: Lieutenant junior grade
Occupation: Sciences division officer
Status: Deceased (2266) Died: 2266, USS Enterprise
Played by: Stewart Moss

It adds: This character has the distinction of being the only officer to wear lieutenant junior grade rank insignia in the entire run of TOS.
 
Henoch said:
Rank not given in episode; but Memory Alpha lists him as:
Lieutenant jg Joe Tormolen
Species: Human
Affiliation: Federation Starfleet
Rank: Lieutenant junior grade
Occupation: Sciences division officer
Status: Deceased (2266) Died: 2266, USS Enterprise
Played by: Stewart Moss

It adds: This character has the distinction of being the only officer to wear lieutenant junior grade rank insignia in the entire run of TOS.
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Right, so that proves my point. Thank you for sharing.

The only actual fact in that summary regarding the character's rank is "Rank not given in episode."

Because the character is wearing a half-stripe, because Lieutenants wear full stripes, because Ensigns wear no stripe, we can conclude that Joe's rank is between Lieutenant and Ensign.

Because in the United States Navy the ranks go Ensign, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Lieutenant Senior Grade, we are assuming that this intermediate rank is Lieutenant Junior Grade. This is not unreasonable, and if the words "Lootenant Senior Grade" are ever spoken in the show in reference to a character with a single full stripe on their sleeve, it becomes downright probable.

But we are assuming that JLt exists. It might not. The rank might be Sublieutenant. Or Subaltern. Or Ensign, Senior Grade. It's highly likely that the showrunners intended it to exist and there's really nothing to be gained by claiming it doesn't - but ultimately, the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade is not actually depicted in TOS.
 
Vagabond Elf said:
Right, so that proves my point. Thank you for sharing.

The only actual fact in that summary regarding the character's rank is "Rank not given in episode."

Because the character is wearing a half-stripe, because Lieutenants wear full stripes, because Ensigns wear no stripe, we can conclude that Joe's rank is between Lieutenant and Ensign.

Because in the United States Navy the ranks go Ensign, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Lieutenant Senior Grade, we are assuming that this intermediate rank is Lieutenant Junior Grade. This is not unreasonable, and if the words "Lootenant Senior Grade" are ever spoken in the show in reference to a character with a single full stripe on their sleeve, it becomes downright probable.

But we are assuming that JLt exists. It might not. The rank might be Sublieutenant. Or Subaltern. Or Ensign, Senior Grade. It's highly likely that the showrunners intended it to exist and there's really nothing to be gained by claiming it doesn't - but ultimately, the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade is not actually depicted in TOS.
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This is a funny argument. The rank could also be flying spaghetti monster, but it’s probably not. They’re also not Romulans or Brits, so I doubt it’s “sublootenant.” Lieutenant junior grade, it likely is.

Laura Cynthia Chambers said:
Does it have to be redshirt? How about Kevin Riley?
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That a good one — I nearly coupled him with Rand earlier — but ideally a non-speaking part to match this non-speaking (or largely non-speaking?) part. Plus the variety of uniform color would be nice. Riley I would definitely couple with someone though. Maybe one of the three temptresses from “Mudd’s Women”? Or would it make sense to package them in a special 3-pack? 4-pack with Harry?
 
Arpy said:
Who’s a good redshirt to couple with Lieutenant Radha in a 2-pack? I was going to use Ensign Garrovick, but I want someone without a speaking line for this fun & quirky set.
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How about Yeoman Zahra:adore: from Operation: Annihilate!
1771438596301.png

It's the women's international pack teaming Indian Lt. Radha with Moroccan Yeoman Zahra. :)

<edit. I believe both actresses, Naomi Pollack (95) and Maurishka Tagliaferro (84) are still alive. :techman: >
 
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Vagabond Elf said:
It's highly likely that the showrunners intended it to exist and there's really nothing to be gained by claiming it doesn't - but ultimately, the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade is not actually depicted in TOS.
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Logically, everything you said is true. Pragmatically, there's no useful value to the fandom in thinking of him as "rank unique-but-unknown Joseph Tormolen." Go back in time and show GR the screenshot and ask him what rank this is; we all know he has only two reasonable options: LTJG or costuming error. Take your pick. (I have no heartburn if somebody picks "costuming error," since The Omega Glory has a way bigger one.)

So all that said, I acknowledge the precision and correctness of your comments. I appreciate that approach. Personally, though, I will continue to treat Joey as a LTJG as though it were 100% canon.

Edit to add: The thought just occurred to me... what if this was all a result of a last-minute wardrobe crisis? What if just before filming his first Enterprise scene, it was discovered that the only blue uniform that fit Stewart Moss was a McCoy spare, and the fastest way to make it usable was to grab a seam ripper and remove the solid stripe (which would have fewer stitch complications than the dash series)?

Henoch said:
Crazy Lazarus & Sane Lazarus (with changeable facial hair)
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Given the theme of a woman in every pack, the obvious pairing to me is Charlene Masters & Lazarus – especially since earlier script drafts had a romance between these two. Then include your changeable beard with an alternate torn uniform and a reusable bandage (or, more practically, a swappable head), and the owner can make it whichever Lazarus they like. A single-Lazarus pack is also a nod to the fact that they cannot coexist unless they're in photo negative inside a spinning newspaper.
 
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Just a Bill said:
Given the theme of a woman in every pack, the obvious pairing to me is Charlene Masters & Lazarus – especially since earlier script drafts had a romance between these two. Then include your changeable beard with an alternate torn uniform and a reusable bandage (or, more practically, a swappable head), and the owner can make it whichever Lazarus they like. A single-Lazarus pack is also a nod to the fact that they cannot coexist unless they're in photo negative inside a spinning newspaper.
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This dual pack is a big improvement. I like issuing the Charlene Masters figure and only one Lazarus with changeable items. :techman: A play set can be Lazarus' space/time ship with removable dome.
 
Did anyone say Deela and Odona yet? My favorite pair of female guest stars, and both of them manipulated poor Kirk for their own ends.

Another good two-pack if it wasn't already mentioned—Kelinda and Drea from "By Any Other Name." Drea could come with optional helm console.
 
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