Questions on the Captain's Logs

[JonnyQuest037]

Question for the group: When you're rewatching TOS episodes, how do you interpret the Captain's Logs coming out of the commercial breaks? Do you think of them as verbatim excerpts of what Kirk recorded and sent to Starfleet Command, or do you think of them as just a dramatic convention of TOS the television show, and only vaguely representative of what Kirk's logs actually would have been?

And do you ever get hung up on questions like exactly when over the course of the story Kirk recorded them, or wonder why Kirk the narrator is privy to information that Kirk the character is not at that point in the story? Take for instance the first two logs from "The Enemy Within":

• "Captain's log, stardate 1672.1. Specimen gathering mission on planet Alpha 177. Unknown to any of us during this time, a duplicate of me, some strange alter ego, had been created by the transporter malfunction."

• "Captain's log, stardate 1672.9. On the planet's surface, temperatures are beginning to drop; our landing party there in growing jeopardy. Due to the malfunction of the ship's transporter, an unexplained duplicate of myself definitely exists."

It shifts from past to present tense. The first one sounds like Kirk is recounting the entire story after the fact, but the second one is right in the thick of the action.

And where do you think Kirk typically recorded his logs? On the bridge, where everyone could hear? ("Hey, Captain, why'd you say that Gary Mitchell died in the line of duty and not talk about how he killed Kelso and tried to bury you alive?") In his quarters, where he could talk about potentially sensitive or classified information more freely? Or did he just excuse himself to go to the loo every time he had a thought to put down?

I'm interested in hearing your thoughts!

 

[Timo]

I trust these logs are principally provided as dramatic narration for nicely bookended specific events in Kirk's life and times. That is, the ship and her crew constantly record "raw" logs of all sorts, visual, telemetry, personal observations etc. without any dramatic ambitions. Yet after the adventure is over, Kirk collates this all into his informative-digestible version of the events, something an Admiral back home can watch as an introduction to the adventure.

Kirk composes his voiceovers ex post facto with that in mind. Heck, most of the visuals may be computer-generated after the fact, too, to support the narrative. Some of the "raw" recordings may be edited in, of course, sometimes resulting in break-of-tense and other oddities.

Cross-checking for the specific stardates (so anal-retentively accurately provided for this very purpose), this Admiral can then find the actual recordings, telemetry tracks and Science Officer's entries to go with the adventure. Any personal spin Kirk has put into his narration can in theory be stripped away, then - but the point is that the Admiral is interested in Kirk's personal spin first and foremost, trusting his "field man" to do the filtering for him.

Given the amount of editing Kirk has to do, he no doubt composes these logs at his desk terminal in his cabin/office...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Maurice]

The original intent, I believe, was that the logs were Kirk making them after the adventure was over, not in situ.

I suspect he recorded them in the head.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I always had to chuckle when we'd see Scotty in command and he'd be making his detailed log entry on the bridge, often being interrupted by some dude needing him to sign a report and then going on.

I chuckled because... 1) was it really so vital Scotty had to make a log entry saying he's "concerned" about the landing party being overdue or something? Couldn't that wait until it was all over, like a debriefing or a report the cops fill out after the fact? 2) the guy getting something signed couldn't wait for Kirk to get home. Apparently, all he needed was the signature of whoever was in command at that moment, but honestly, it's a report. I can't imagine whoever was signing it was authorizing a ship-vital procedure that couldn't wait a few hours. 3) that log entries were done in the middle of the bride during a duty period. I don't know about you, but I hate even leaving a voicemail message when someone is standing behind me. But then again, I'm not a square jawed Starfleet commander.

 

[Kor]

I was always a bit puzzled by "Captain's log, no stardate" in COTEOF.

Kor

 

[tim0122]

I was always a bit puzzled by "Captain's log, no stardate" in COTEOF.

Kor

I've always thought the same thing. History may have been changed but that doesn't mean there's no star date. The time you're in is exactly the same, the Federation just doesn't exist anymore. Actually, why is he even making a log entry at that moment? Even if some alien comes to the planet, finds their corpses, and listens to the recording, he/she won't have any idea what Kirk is talking about.

In regards to the log entry thing in general, it took the writers a while to work out the logistics of it. In the original series, you see people making log entries about things they wouldn't know anything about at that time and making entries during times they couldn't possibly have made them. For example, there's the Enemy Within example and there are also episodes where the characters are locked up and wouldn't have access to the ship or a log entry device but still somehow make a log. Or there are times when no discernible time has passed since the commercial break, but we still hear a log entry made in the present tense, as if they made it shortly before we rejoined the action. Sometimes these can be excused by Kirk noting the log was made later or by a sublimentel entry. But a lot of the time in TOS these excuses aren't made and it just ends up making no sense.

 

[Timo]

The time you're in is exactly the same, the Federation just doesn't exist anymore.

...Perhaps the Federation Timebase Beacons don't exist anymore, either, meaning Kirk's clock implant isn't getting any feed and he really can't tell the stardate?

I can't imagine whoever was signing it was authorizing a ship-vital procedure that couldn't wait a few hours.

Some novelists have made fun of this, referring to "fuel consumption reports" popping up for signing at really inconvenient times. But there's actually a bit of sense in that: in "The Doomsday Machine", we learn that intense impulse maneuvering will consume the ship's entire fuel supply in a matter of hours. The commanding officer would definitely want up-to-date information on fuel status - especially if impulse reactors also provide power for systems other than the drive, TNG style, and shields gobble up that power at a fantastic rate (just about the only rationale I can think of for the odd fact that starships never raise shields until the very last moment).

Why Scotty would get this crucial data on a PADD requiring a signature, rather than on a display three feet high installed in place of the main viewer... Now that's the real mystery.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JonnyQuest037]

2) the guy getting something signed couldn't wait for Kirk to get home. Apparently, all he needed was the signature of whoever was in command at that moment, but honestly, it's a report. I can't imagine whoever was signing it was authorizing a ship-vital procedure that couldn't wait a few hours.

Eddie Izzard had the theory that those crewmen were really just getting Captain Kirk's autograph:

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"To Cliff, from Captain Kirk. Well done!"

I was always a bit puzzled by "Captain's log, no stardate" in COTEOF.

It makes no sense, but I've always been a sucker for that bit. It gives you a little chill to think that time itself is THAT messed up. I love how in "Mirror, Mirror" Kirk starts all of his log entries with "Stardate... Unknown." Wait... You've switched universes, and somehow that changes the date?

Kirk also apparently finds the time to make a log entry in the middle of Chekov's assassination attempt in that episode! What a stickler for deadlines!

There was a neat line in Margaret Wander Bonanno's book Strangers From The Sky, where Kirk & crew are thrown back in time. Kirk starts a log entry with something like, "Stardate... Irrelevant. Stardates won't exist for another sixty-two years."

You know, thinking back, I don't know if the movies utilized periodic log entries as well as they could have. I think the only time we see Kirk making a log entry in the middle of a mission instead of the beginning is in TMP. It's a subtle thing that makes the movie feel a little more like TOS, if only for those few moments. I guess they figured that they just work better on TV, coming back from a commercial break.

 

[Timo]

I think the only time we see Kirk making a log entry in the middle of a mission instead of the beginning is in TMP.

Well, in ST5:TFF, he has an excuse for that...

(His failed attempt comes in the middle of the beginning, FWIW.)

Also, the parallel Kirk does make a log entry on Delta Vega, in the thick of things. Even if he isn't a captain or much anything at that point.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Drone]

I trust these logs are principally provided as dramatic narration for nicely bookended specific events in Kirk's life and times. That is, the ship and her crew constantly record "raw" logs of all sorts, visual, telemetry, personal observations etc. without any dramatic ambitions. Yet after the adventure is over, Kirk collates this all into his informative-digestible version of the events, something an Admiral back home can watch as an introduction to the adventure.

Kirk composes his voiceovers ex post facto with that in mind. Heck, most of the visuals may be computer-generated after the fact, too, to support the narrative. Some of the "raw" recordings may be edited in, of course, sometimes resulting in break-of-tense and other oddities.

Cross-checking for the specific stardates (so anal-retentively accurately provided for this very purpose), this Admiral can then find the actual recordings, telemetry tracks and Science Officer's entries to go with the adventure. Any personal spin Kirk has put into his narration can in theory be stripped away, then - but the point is that the Admiral is interested in Kirk's personal spin first and foremost, trusting his "field man" to do the filtering for him.

Given the amount of editing Kirk has to do, he no doubt composes these logs at his desk terminal in his cabin/office...

Timo Saloniemi

But there are definitely instances, when we see him making the entries in his chair on the bridge. How many? I vaguely remember a few from later points of the series, but honestly can't recall specific episodes. In making this claim, I hope I'm not likely to discover that I must, in fact, be a denizen of the MU or some alternate timeline. Any help please? It happened at the end of WNMHGB, obviously. Perhaps, as the pilot, this instance can be discounted.

 

[PhaserLightShow]

I believe logs are actual accounts (in universe) that the Captain makes. What we see is what exists in Star Trek.

@PhaserLightShow

 

[USS Triumphant]

I chuckled because... 1) was it really so vital Scotty had to make a log entry saying he's "concerned" about the landing party being overdue or something? Couldn't that wait until it was all over, like a debriefing or a report the cops fill out after the fact?

Well, maybe. I mean, how many times have we seen "our heroes" check the logs of a derelict ship or station, looking for key clues to what happened? Suppose something unexpected happened suddenly and killed the crew aboard the Enterprise? Anyone finding the logs would know to look on the surface and try to find the away team, because the last officer of the watch's last log said he was concerned about them being overdue...

It makes no sense, but I've always been a sucker for that bit. It gives you a little chill to think that time itself is THAT messed up. I love how in "Mirror, Mirror" Kirk starts all of his log entries with "Stardate... Unknown." Wait... You've switched universes, and somehow that changes the date?

As for COTEOF, it might make sense - like someone pointed out, Kirk and Co. might have been out of touch with Federation time beacons for their time telling implants (assuming that's a thing). But also, they were being shielded from changes in time by the Guardian, and could take like 10 steps and be in any time or place they wanted to. That situation honestly makes stardate pretty darned irrelevant.

As for "Mirror, Mirror", switching universes *might* actually change the date. For one, again, the time beacons of the Terran Empire might not communicate with their implants. But more to the point, we've been shown that the Mirror Earth itself actually rotates in the opposite direction from the way Earth does. Which actually has implications for the likely rotational directions of a large number of other stellar entities. So ... who can say if Stardate would be calculated the same way, or would have been started on the same date, or.... ? Without Spock to advise him, Kirk probably wouldn't even know if time was flowing at the same rate in the MU as it did back home - for all he knew at the end, they were beaming back into empty space, 1000 years after his ship and crewmates gave up on ever recovering them.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

But more to the point, we've been shown that the Mirror Earth itself actually rotates in the opposite direction from the way Earth does. Which actually has implications for the likely rotational directions of a large number of other stellar entities. So ... who can say if Stardate would be calculated the same way, or would have been started on the same date, or.... ?

But Kirk would have no way of knowing that Mirror Earth would be rotating in the opposite direction, since both Enterprises were orbiting around Halka. They were only in the Mirror Universe for a few hours, anyway, and I can't imagine why Kirk would think to double-check that detail when he had so much else to worry about.

The Earth rotating in the opposite direction wasn't "established" until ENT's "In A Mirror, Darkly" right? I have the feeling that wasn't meant literally, anyway. Unless you also believe that Mirror-Earth has a gigantic dagger floating in front of it.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Unless you also believe that Mirror-Earth has a gigantic dagger floating in front of it.

CAN YOU PROVE THAT IT DOESN'T??!!

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

The original intent, I believe, was that the logs were Kirk making them after the adventure was over, not in situ.

I suspect he recorded them in the head.

And the captain's log did work much better in the early episodes, where it was recorded after the adventure. As opposed to "Court Martial", where he's seemingly recording it while his fixing the ship's engines in the Jefferies' Tube!

I felt that TNG, however, was the worse offender of the captain's log. They treated it as Picard's inner monologue, having him spout Shakespearean soliloquies as opposed to short bits of narrative information.

 

[Nebusj]

It makes no sense, but I've always been a sucker for that bit. It gives you a little chill to think that time itself is THAT messed up. I love how in "Mirror, Mirror" Kirk starts all of his log entries with "Stardate... Unknown." Wait... You've switched universes, and somehow that changes the date?

I would doubt there is any logically coherent way to describe things in two separate universes being ``at the same time''. It's difficult enough to define ``simultaneous'' for two things in the same universe.

 

[Maurice]

I would doubt there is any logically coherent way to describe things in two separate universes being ``at the same time''. It's difficult enough to define ``simultaneous'' for two things in the same universe.

Of course. The mirror universe has mirror stardates, as in "7.3283", and eeeevil.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Of course. The mirror universe has mirror stardates, as in "7.3283", and eeeevil.

"Conquest Log: Evil Stardate 7.3283..."

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

 

[Captain Rob]

Just curious. In the MU shouldn't the Federation standard language now be German? If the Nazis won WW2? Or would the Nazis have been the good guys and the Americans the bad guys. And the Nazis lost because they were too compassionate. and merciful. That gives me a headache.