The ship seems to be full of people with war injuries, fittingly enough. We see a guy speeding past on a conventional wheelchair, too - this is unlikely to be the condition in which he was accepted to Starfleet service, both because we hear of physical requirements often enough, and because the Federation supposedly can undo basic mobility problems more efficiently and elegantly (heck, ten years from now, they can make dead people walk on remote control). Possibly one gets well-fitting implants only after undergoing several months of adaptation and stage-by-stage surgery at least. Until then, it's crutches and VISORs. With LaForge, we get two key bits of info: that it's his ocular nerve that is at fault (and that Pulaski's cure for that is the novel thing, while replacement eyes are a triviality and always were), and that LaForge loves his VISOR and doesn't want to downgrade to mere regular eyes no matter what (but he could do with less pain, although he turns down the painkillers and lobotomy that Crusher suggests). Does this guy love his supervision? Or is he waiting to have his regular eyesight restored? No telling yet, is the keyword. Timo Saloniemi
Cool thread. I love this stuff, and totally hope we get some TNG & DS9 era connections, and that those connections are explicit and mentioned on screen.
Except explicitly not - we meet him when our heroes are yet to reach that ship. Heck, his appearance precedes Pike beaming aboard the Discovery, so he wasn't invalidized by the calamity that crippled the Enterprise, either. Rather, he's Discovery crew scurrying to help the Enterprise... (We had a guy in a wheelchair in "Magic", too; was it this same extra? The other supposed war injuries, implants and the like, persist with specific characters and extras.) Timo Saloniemi
I think we can rest relieved that the wheelchair will persist for some time, then. As no doubt will Detmer's fake eye and the transporter guy's headgear; we just now can argue that the rationale is common to all three. Timo Saloniemi
I'm trying to remember but, I can't think of a TOS episode in which the circumstances DIDN'T Force Them to interfere with a pre-warp planet. The only one I can recall in which They did have somewhat of a choice was "A Private Little War" and even then the Klingons actually were the driving force in that instance.
They contacted Capella for mining rights without any forcing. And the Halkans, who didn't appear particularly warplike. And they had no misgivings about answering signals from pre-warp cultures such as the Scalosians, or sailing in to dictate terms to pre-warp cultures such as the Eminians, or treating Elas and Troyius as a protectorate of some sort. Indeed, it's hard to come up with an example of the PD being a factor in messing with pre-warpers (beyond "Bread and Circuses" where it supposedly dictates a covert approach for the reconnaissance party - and this specifically with a pre-warp society that hadn't made interstellar contact yet, as opposed to the regular sort that was in contact without warp). It's just that Kirk was assigned these missions before the camera joined the action; he didn't tackle them on his own, as a response to a discovery he made. So he's off the hook there. If the PD is a rule imposed by the UFP government, then said government is logically empowered to declare the rule null and void, too. Or to do whatever interpreting it wants done. Timo Saloniemi
The examples you give are all such that it seems that the Federation was either invited in some manner or already had contact previously when the ENTERPRISE showed up. The Scalosians were deceitful in their dealings when they made contact and therefore should be taken out of the running. The Eminian situation was something that the Federation Diplomatic Corps had purposely sent Ambassador Fox in to assist in negotiations, so one could guess that some contact had occurred before hand which means it's not a First Contact situation. (and Fox was an ass any way) Elan & Troyius both appeared to have requested Federation assistance in that particular episode, so they may have already been Federation members or at the very least a protectorate of some kind. (especially since the Klingons were sneaking around, instead of just going in and taking over by force) The Capallians obviously had already been in contact with both the Klingons and the Federation. The Halkans appeared to be in a similar situation, having already told the Federation they weren't interested in trading, again..., before Enterprises' visit. So all in all, as you said, by the time Kirk showed up most situations were ongoing and needed to be resolved one way or another.
^^^ Hell, the ST: D Short Trek - "The Brightest Star" shows Starfleet now willing to take individuals (IE Saru) from pre-warp civilization; thus a Barzan being in Starfleet here doesn't seem much of a stretch.
Indeed. But Kirk's is "historic", according to Icheb. Does that mean that there were dozens or hundreds and his stands out by its qualities, now that we can rule out the very existence of the mission as having been historic? Timo Saloniemi
It was generally accepted conjecture/fanon that Pike had two consecutive five-year missions (since "The Menagerie" says he was in command of the Enterprise for no less than eleven years). While they certainly could go with more modern, let's call it "post-DVD" analysis rather than received wisdom dating back to the '70s when folks were figuring this all out based on audio tape recordings, scribbled notes, and their own fallible memories of the episodes, I guess there's enough of an old-school sensibility to stick with the idea that five-year missions were standard at the time and not something specific to Kirk, the Enterprise, and that specific tour of duty, something equally supported by the evidence, but an idea I've only seen argued for relatively recently.
The Price says that the Barzan have no manned spaceflight. It doesn't say they have no warp capabilities.
It also says the Barzans depend on others, and have depended on them for generations. By definition, that means contact. Is this the sort of contact that exists between the Kelpians and the Ba'ul, another relationship with features of dependence? Or is this interstellar contact that preempts most if not all PD concerns? Certainly the presence of Nhan is not a contradiction of any sort. But it's fertile grounds for speculation. Timo Saloniemi
I think it was historic due to the amount of First contacts made by the Enterpise. Pretty sure it was stated in another Voyager episode that Captain Janeway had beaten kirk's record for the most first contacts by a starfleet captain.
Kirk "negotiated" the Organian peace treaty with the klingons to end active fighting. Kirk fought and defeated the first romulan Starship since more than 100 years, and later stole the romulan cloaking device. Kirk defeated the gorn captain, what may have been important for their future relationships. Kirk made a good contact with the "First Federation" (we later never heard of again) Kirk did......... So YES, I think, Kirk's 5-year-mission can be called "historic", even if there were lots of them.