Great news, johnnybear! Discovery just stopped existing because you refused to ever acknowledge it! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!
YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
JB
Pike and "Fleet Captain"?
- Thread starter BillJ
- Start date
YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
JB
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C57D
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Well done JB. Can you do your magic on Enterprise next please?
Oh if only I could, C57D! I've always found it odd and very annoying that these producers or show runners if you will always set their shows during the TOS time period or much earlier!
Almost as if they're trying to invalidate it by showing the superior technology to a series that they find to be embarrassing!
JB
Almost as if they're trying to invalidate it by showing the superior technology to a series that they find to be embarrassing!
JB
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I hear what you are saying JB.Oh if only I could, C57D! I've always found it odd and very annoying that these producers or show runners if you will always set their shows during the TOS time period or much earlier!
Almost as if they're trying to invalidate it by showing the superior technology to a series that they find to be embarrassing!
JB
I SO wanted to like Enterprise - I thought it would be showing us a pre transporter (so relying totally on shuttles for landing party transport), pre phasers and photons, pre tricorder etc tech show. A far lower tech show, two hundred years removed from TNG high-tech technobabble.
Humanity's erruption out into deep space with all our limitations - social, technological and emotional - being draggged along for the ride. And climbing the steep learning curve of first contacts (some amicable, and some totally disasterous !) leading in time to (TOS version of) the Prime Directive.
Hoping that the heroes ship might be a Daedelus class or (hope against all hope) a Marshall class or something else equally appropriate from the original Spaceflight Chronology.
And what did we get?
Akira-prise, a subtle (cough, cough) 9-11 / War on Terror season, and TNG tech rehashed.
Missed opportunity!!!!
And I really wanted to like Discovery too - back to "The Cage" era - wow!
But look how THAT turned out!
Oh well...... rant over......move along .....nothing to see here......
NahOh if only I could, C57D! I've always found it odd and very annoying that these producers or show runners if you will always set their shows during the TOS time period or much earlier!
Almost as if they're trying to invalidate it by showing the superior technology to a series that they find to be embarrassing!
JB
Yes, this seems like the simplest explanation, both in-universe and resembling the real-world use of the position in the 19th century. Perhaps once a captain serves a tour of duty as fleet captain, they continue to be refered to as fleet captain, even if they've moved on to another assignment like starship command. Duty as an admiral's chief of staff would be preferred training for future admirals.
Looking at The Cage, lots of officers wore one stripe, including Mitchell (Lt. Cdr.), Number 1 (must have been at least Lt. Cdr. to be senior to Mitchell), and Pike (probably at least a Cdr. to be senior to Mitchell), and several people referred to as Lt. There were also some junior officers (or warrant officers, petty officers, or enlisted) who wore no stripe. The simplest conclusion is that the stripe did not indicate exact rank at that time, but just commissioned, or possibly Lt. or higher, rank.
Then in Where No Man Has Gone Before, most of them still had the same uniforms except for Kirk who had a different uniform and two stripes. I expect the producers decided they ought to distinguish the captain somehow. But everyone else was still using the same uniforms as in The Cage. Conclusion, new uniform regulations that were adopted at once for the captain but phased in as convenient for other officers.
I liked the landing party field jackets in The Cage. They ought to have something to keep them warm for possibly a long time outdoors, and they looked a little dressier too.
Umm, you're conflating two pilot episodes above. In "The Cage", the highest rank ever mentioned was Lieutenant for Number One; she's thus automatically just as senior as need be for bossing over everybody but Pike.
It's in "Where No Man" where Mitchell wears just one stripe and gets called Lieutenant Commander (albeit posthumously) by Kirk, and briefly referred to as Commander by Dr. Dehner. If we want to argue that Starfleet had a different rank braid scheme at some point, then "Where No Man" is the time for it, there being no demand for it in "The Cage" yet.
Then again, two stripes for full Commander is a perfectly fine rank for Captain Kirk in "Where No Man", even if one braid for Lieutenant might have been on the low side for Captain Pike. So perhaps we should ignore Mitchell instead: his promotion to LCdr might have come after his heroic death, to better hide the fact that it wasn't all that heroic after all...
Timo Saloniemi
It's in "Where No Man" where Mitchell wears just one stripe and gets called Lieutenant Commander (albeit posthumously) by Kirk, and briefly referred to as Commander by Dr. Dehner. If we want to argue that Starfleet had a different rank braid scheme at some point, then "Where No Man" is the time for it, there being no demand for it in "The Cage" yet.
Then again, two stripes for full Commander is a perfectly fine rank for Captain Kirk in "Where No Man", even if one braid for Lieutenant might have been on the low side for Captain Pike. So perhaps we should ignore Mitchell instead: his promotion to LCdr might have come after his heroic death, to better hide the fact that it wasn't all that heroic after all...
Timo Saloniemi
Agreed about the jackets. I always liked them as well.
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Another vote for the field jackets, and a shame they vanished after the Cage until their reincarnation in TMP.
My only issue was the pistol harness being worn underneath them. Not very accesible if you need your weapon in a hurry.
Funny, I was thinking about typing the same thing! Not only that but once they got the Velcro I freaking loved how the equipment looked on landing party missions. The jackets might have taken away from that.
I sort of like to think that the gear they wear in the later TOS movies is field jackets over standard service pullovers, pretty much like in "The Cage". Only, they aren't "field jackets" as such: they are what it takes to complete a formally acceptable uniform, the very thing Kirk and pals no longer bother to do half a year into their five-year mission... But are required to do in their movie adventures, in front of cadets and Starfleet bigwigs and the like.
...Goes to show that they aren't for field use as such.
Timo Saloniemi
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Or, at least they aren't very well designed for field use ?...Goes to show that they aren't for field use as such.
Timo Saloniemi
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Great minds and all that!
I must admit that the mainstream TOS - landing party phasers and communicators on belts and tricorder and/or med kits slung over shoulders - look is very elegant and practical. All you need, easily accessible.
But a part of me also loves the simpler, more primitive, more hands on Cage look too. Landing party junior members carrying some sort equipment kits, and even one with an aerial? I recently wondered if that is some sort long range communicator or communication booster to support more primitive short ranged hand sets?
Also, I often wish that Security in that era had their own shirt colour. Putting it in with Engineering and Communication never seemed right to me. In keeping with the other Cage pastel shades, I imagine a light grey would look good and quite millitary?
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After I read this idea in another post (possibly by you) some time ago, I started to think that there could be some truth to it in a way. Perhaps there was always a jacket, and prior to TWOK rules are somewhat more relaxed and the jacket need not be worn at all times. In the army jacket has times it is required and times it isn't. What I like about this idea is that it ties the TWOK uniforms into "The Cage" insomuch as the crew wears colored sweaters to note their positions, and the jacket leaves the color exposed to keep that identifiable. The color code is even similar, using a yellow-type color for ops and blue-type color for sciences. The biggest difference here is that white is now the color worn by command officers, but that could be because the captains we see in the movies are special in some way. Sulu is still wearing yellow and commander's rank in TWOK, even though he was about to become a captain, supposedly, and Scotty goes back and forth between yellow and white in the later movies.
Security in blue works with the Federations Forces in ST:V wearing blue sweaters. Also, there are technically three colors in "The Cage" with Pike, Number One, and Jose Tyler wearing the greenish color that was used later in TOS, a more orange-ish or pink-ish yellow for operations personnel like CPO Garrison, and blue for sciences personell like Spock.
I also think this is the simplest explanation. Navies traditionally have three categories of uniforms: officer, enlisted and something in between (Chief Petty Officer in the USN, Petty Officer in Commonwealth navies), who wear a uniform like officers but with enlisted insignia. In "The Cage" you have the officers with one stripe, enlisted with no stripe, and Garrison—a chief petty officer in the script—with a "ladder" stripe. Perhaps finer rank distinctions weren't considered necessary aboard ship.
I like them, too. The one thing I don't like about them is the lack of a collar. The ribbed shirt collar stood up enough to help keep the neck warm, which was better than in TMP, but it's really nice to have something heavier up around the neck if it's cold. Unfortunately the jacket material they chose to look futuristic, a foam-backed upholstery material turned inside out, looked so beat-up after use that the jackets couldn't be used again.
The TWOK shirts didn't seem intended to be worn on their own, though, as they lacked rank insignia.
Mitchell's medical record seen on a screen in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" says his rank is Lieutenant Commander:
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Gary_Mitchell?file=Mitchell_profile_stats.jpg
So I guess that how canonical that data is depends on how legible that record is on television now and how legible it was back in 1965-66.
Perhaps Gary Mitchell had two ranks of two different types, one lieutenant and one lieutenant commander, and wore the rank insignia of the rank of lieutenant but was entitled to be referred to as lieutenant commander or commander in some situations.
Y'all need to let go of the rank insignia from the pilots.
This. I’m fairly hardcore, but the pilot rank insignias never made sense. Pike was in his mid- to late-30’s in “The Cage”, no way he was still a lieutenant.
Zactly. I really liked the way McCoy/Kelley did up his kit once they added the Velcro, with the tricorder slung over his left shoulder so that it was locked into position behind the medkit, attached via Velcro at his left hip. And no one managed to have a "holstered" phaser two look cooler than Shatner's - he seemed to know exactly where to put it for maximum effect.
