Only one problem: he was already a Cadet Lieutenant and a student instructor in 2250, not long after entering the Academy. Gary Mitchell first met him that year and Kirk was already teaching a class that Gary attended. As ridiculous as it may sound, Kirk may well have skyrocketed from Cadet Fourth Class to Ensign and then at least to Lt. Junior Grade during his first year at the Academy. He may have been that damn good.
I wouldn't blame Mike Okuda. He was just extrapolating as best he could from the onscreen dialogue and established canon, and whether or not it makes much sense Kirk was already apparently holding a Lieutenant rank the year he started at the Academy. He appears to have spent most of his four years there as a Lieutenant and held the same rank after he graduated and was assigned to the Farragut.
There's no problem at all, except the one created by the
Chronology in making exactly those very-ridiculous-indeed assumptions, instead of a much simpler and more sensible one, which in one fell swoop instantly allows for the reconciliation of
all the other reference points in subsequent episodes. Namely, that 17-year-old Kirk, then newly enrolled at the Academy, or just about to be,
originally met even-younger Gary Mitchell in some
other context, several years
before the latter joined SF, at which
later time the
now-Lieutenant Kirk was his instructor there, leading to the formation of a closer relationship between them from that point onward. Those references are given separately and from different points of view in the episode:
SPOCK: Our subject is not Gary Mitchell. Our concern is, rather, what he is mutating into.
DEHNER: I know those from your planet aren't supposed to have feelings like we do, Mister Spock, but to talk that way about a man you've worked next to for years is worse than even—
KIRK: That's enough, Doctor!
DEHNER: I don't think so. I understand you least of all. Gary told me that you've been friends since he joined the service, that you asked for him aboard your first command...
KIRK: It is my duty, whether pleasant or unpleasant, to listen to the reports, observations, even speculations, on any subject that might affect the safety of this vessel, and it's my science officer's duty to see that I'm provided with that. Go ahead, Mister Spock.
[...]
MITCHELL: Hello, Jim. Hey, you look worried.
KIRK: I've been worried about you ever since that night on Deneb IV.
MITCHELL: Yeah, she was nova, that one. Not nearly as many aftereffects this time, except for the eyes. They kind of stare back at me when I'm shaving.
KIRK: Do you feel any different?
MITCHELL: In a way, I feel better than I've ever felt before in my life. Actually seems to have done me some good.
KIRK: How?
MITCHELL: Well, I'm getting a chance to read some of that longhair stuff you like. Hey man, I remember you back at the Academy, a stack of books with legs. The first thing I ever heard from an upperclassman was: "Watch out for Lieutenant Kirk! In his class, you either think or sink!"
KIRK: I wasn't that bad, was I?
MITCHELL: If I hadn't aimed that little blonde lab technician at you...
KIRK: You what!? You planned that?
MITCHELL: Well, you wanted me to think, didn't you? I outlined her whole campaign for her.
KIRK: I almost married her!
[...]
KIRK: Stardate 1313.1...we're now approaching Delta Vega, course set for a standard orbit. This planet, completely uninhabited, is slightly smaller than Earth, desolate, but rich in crystal and minerals. Kelso's task: transport down with a repair party, try to regenerate the main engines, save the ship. Our task: transport down a man I've known for fifteen years, and if we're successful, maroon him there.
Mitchell was always supposed to be at least a couple of years
younger than Kirk, not the same age. (Don't forget that he ages rapidly once he's been affected by the barrier, with progressively more fake gray being added to his hair as the episode goes along.) Note however that we
needn't believe him
quite so young as we
might from the medical record giving his age as 23. (And in fact, we probably shouldn't, because it looks to be a scan of a printed document with hand-written annotations on it, dating back to when his ESP rating was last assessed following the incident on Deneb IV mentioned by Kirk, whenever that was.) The script described Mitchell as "about thirty" and Lockwood was 28 when he played the part, FWIW.
Kirk's backstory is described thusly in
The Making Of Star Trek, published in 1968 and written from the perspective of the second season:
"He appears to be thirty-four years old and was born in a small town in the State of Iowa. He entered Space Academy as a midshipman at the age of seventeen, the minimum age allowed. He attended the Academy and finished in the top five percent. Kirk rose very rapidly through the ranks and received his first command (the equivalent of a destroyer-class spaceship) while still quite young. Kirk has been in command of the Enterprise
for more than four years and was the youngest Academy graduate ever to have been assigned as a Starship Command Captain."
This clarifies a number of points for us in the larger picture. First and foremost, that he
wasn't intended to have been in error when citing his age in "The Deadly Years" (TOS), which we readily
could have reasoned, should need ever have arisen, since the whole point there was that he was going senile and making mistakes in his quoted figures. For another, that the "first command" mentioned by Dehner was
not intended to be the
Enterprise. (And of course that only makes sense, because such an elite ship would surely not be placed in the hands of so young a captain—the
youngest ever, in fact, which is another point made clear here but never onscreen, though it matches up with the portrayal of every other captain we met on the show as significantly older—unless he had prior command experience. Still, if it were really required, we probably
could retcon that and say it
was in fact the
Enterprise, though there is no pressing reason to do so.) For yet another, that Kirk took command of the
Enterprise several years
before the start of the five-year mission. This tallies both with Dehner's comment about Spock having worked with Mitchell "for years" in "Where No Man..."
and with Kirk's mention of Spock never having asked for any kind of leave during "all the years" he's known him in "Amok Time" (TOS).
It also matches the references to Kirk's experiences as a freshman ("plebe" per real-life military academy slang) in "Shore Leave" (TOS):
MCCOY: Well, yeah, I'm beginning to feel a little bit picked on, if that's what you mean.
KIRK: I know the feeling very well. I had it at the Academy. An upperclassman there, one practical joke after another, and always on me. My own personal devil. A guy by the name of Finnegan.
MCCOY: And you being the very serious young cadet...
KIRK: Serious? I'll make a confession, Bones. I was absolutely grim, which delighted Finnegan no end. He was the kind of guy to put a bowl of cold soup in your bed, or a bucket of water propped on a half-open door. You never knew where he'd strike next.
[...]
KIRK: Ruth, how can it be you? How can you possibly be here? You haven't aged. It's been fifteen years.
[...]
FINNEGAN: Always fight fair, don't you? True officer and gentleman, you. You stupid underclassman. I've got the edge. I'm still twenty years old. Look at you! You're an old man!
[...]
FINNEGAN: I never answer questions from plebes, Jimmy boy.
KIRK: I'm not a plebe! This is today, fifteen years later. What are you doing here?
FINNEGAN: I'm being exactly what you expect me to be, Jimmy boy.
If Kirk entered at the youngest age possible, and Mitchell was even younger than Kirk, then Mitchell could not have been at the Academy during Kirk's first year. All the more reason we should infer their instructor-student friendship occurred later, even if Kirk had known him less intimately from around that time. As I said in a
previous post upthread, this also gives the Kirk-Mitchell relationship a nice symmetry with the Kirk-Finney relationship in "Court Martial" (TOS):
STONE: Let us begin with your relationship with Commander Finney. You knew him for a long time, didn't you?
KIRK: Yes, he was an instructor at the Academy when I was a midshipman, but that didn't stand in the way of our beginning a close friendship. His daughter Jamie, who was here last night, was named after me.
STONE: It's common knowledge that something happened to your friendship.
KIRK: It's no secret. We were assigned to the same ship some years later. I relieved him on watch once, and found a circuit open to the atomic matter piles that should've been closed. Another five minutes, it could have blown up the ship.
COMPUTER: Ship's nomenclature. Specify.
KIRK: United Star Ship Republic
, number 1371.
STONE: Continue.
KIRK: I closed the switch, and logged the incident. He drew a reprimand, and was sent to the bottom of the promotion list.
STONE: And he blamed you for that?
KIRK: Yes. He had been at the Academy for an unusually long time as an instructor. As a result, he was late in being assigned to a starship. The delay, he felt, looked bad on his record. My action, he believed, made things worse.
[...]
SHAW: With reference to Records Officer Finney, was there in his service record a reported disciplinary action for failure to close a circuit?
ENSIGN: Yes, ma'am.
SHAW: Was the charge in that instance based upon a log entry by the officer who relieved him?
ENSIGN: Yes, ma'am.
SHAW: And who was that officer?
ENSIGN: Ensign James T. Kirk.
The
only other wrinkle, which can also be easily dispatched without need of convoluted "cadet becomes ensign, lieutenant, and instructor, all in first year" contortions, is that in "Obsession" (TOS) Kirk says Captain Garrovick—there of the
Farragut—was his commanding officer "from the day [he] left the Academy." There is
no reason whatsoever why Garrovick could not have previously been captain of the
Republic as well, with Kirk following him to the
Farragut just as Mitchell followed Kirk from his first command to the
Enterprise. Again, symmetry.
SPOCK: Precisely. Have you studied the incident involving the U.S.S. Farragut
?
MCCOY: No. With all these deaths and injuries, I've only had a chance to scan the tapes. There are eight or ten hours of record tapes there.
SPOCK: F
ortunately, I read somewhat faster. In brief, Doctor, nearly half the crew and the captain were annihilated. The captain's name was Garrovick.
MCCOY: The same as our ensign.
SPOCK: His father. Among the survivors was a young officer on his first deep space assignment, James T. Kirk.
[...]
MCCOY: I was speaking of Lieutenant James T. Kirk of the Starship Farragut
. Eleven years ago, you were the young officer at the phaser station when something attacked. According to the tapes, this young Lieutenant Kirk insisted upon blaming himself.
KIRK: Because I delayed in firing at it.
MCCOY: Y
ou had a normal emotion. You were startled. You delayed firing for a grand total of perhaps two seconds.
KIRK: If I hadn't delayed, it would have been killed.
MCCOY: The ship's exec didn't seem to think so. His log entry was quite clear on the subject: "Lieutenant Kirk is a fine young officer who performed with uncommon bravery."
KIRK: Don't you understand? It killed two hundred crewmen.
MCCOY: Captain Garrovick was very important to you, wasn't he, Jim?
KIRK: Yes. He was my commanding officer from the day I left the Academy. One of the finest men I ever knew. I could have killed that thing if I'd fired soon enough the first time.
The
Farragut was Kirk's "first
deep space assignment," which fits with the references in "A Private Little War" (TOS) to Kirk having been a lieutenant when he commanded his first planetary survey on Neural:
SPOCK: Aside from that, you say it's a Garden of Eden?
KIRK: Or so it seemed to the brash young Lieutenant Kirk in command of his first planet survey.
[...]
MCCOY: Want to think about it again, Jim? Starfleet's orders about this planet state: "No interference with..."
KIRK: "No interference with normal social development." I'm not only aware of it, it was my survey thirteen years ago that recommended it.
MCCOY: I read it. "Inhabitants superior in many ways to humans. Left alone, they undoubtedly someday will develop a remarkably advanced and peaceful culture..."
All this means is the
Republic must have been one closer to home, and could even still have been a training ship then, as she much later seems to be in "Valiant" (DS9), if we like, but all without any need of Ensign Kirk still being a cadet
himself when he served aboard her. Any cadets aboard her would still be overseen by
officers, like Kirk and Finney:
COLLINS: The training cruise was supposed to last three months. We had seven regular officers and a crew of thirty-five cadets. The plan was for the cadets to run the ship while the officers observed and critiqued our performance.
JAKE: So...this was a training ship? Like the other one...the Republic
?
COLLINS: Not quite. The Republic'
s an old ship, I don't think she's left the Terran system in fifty years.
And accordingly, she can—if desired—still be the ship aboard which Kirk visited Axanar, either earlier as a newly-enrolled cadet or as a newly-graduated ensign, depending on how we interpret the expression "new-fledged" in "Whom Gods Destroy" (TOS), and how long before or after Garth's victory there we wish to place the Peace Mission that results in Kirk receiving the Palm Leaf decoration mentioned in "Court Martial" (TOS)—something that could readily be a big deal
or not; for all we know, his entire class went for a field trip and
all received one, just for participation!
"CORY": Garth. Garth of Izar, the former starship fleet captain.
KIRK: When I was a cadet at the Academy, his exploits were required reading. He was one of my heroes. I'd like to see him, Donald.
[...]
KIRK: I studied your victory at Axanar when I was a cadet. In fact, it's still required reading at the Academy.
GARTH: As well it should be.
KIRK: Very well. But my first visit to Axanar was as a new-fledged cadet on a peace mission.
GARTH: Peace mission! Politicians and weaklings!
KIRK: They were humanitarians and statesmen, and they had a dream. A dream that became a reality and spread throughout the stars, a dream that made Mister Spock and me brothers.
Now, let's put all of this together with the 2265-2270 timeframe established in "Q2" (VGR) and Kirk's birth year of 2233 as given by the
Defiant's historical database screen in "In A Mirror, Darkly" (ENT)—although that has a couple other bits that are somewhat questionable—and as also suggested by
Star Trek (2009)—though there was some indication there that
Kelvin Kirk may have been born
slightly prematurely. (If so, Kirk Prime could still have been born on Earth, in that small Iowa town, as suggested by
The Making of Star Trek, although this isn't strictly a requisite because onscreen he only ever said he was "from" there in STIV, not that it was his physical birthplace
per se.)
2233:
Kirk is born.
c2246:
Kirk is one of (initially) nine surviving eye witnesses to Kodos the Executioner's purge on Tarsus IV. This was "twenty Earth years" prior to "The Conscience of the King" (TOS), as given by the computer. This would obviously be rounded somewhat (as it does not go down to a count of months/days/seconds/etc) but not quite so malleable as a human's casual figure might be. Yet the year like many others is still not 100% firm because the exact progression and dating of individual TOS episodes is a bit ambiguous from just the episodes themselves, which were shown out of order to begin with.
c2250-51:
Kirk meets Gary Mitchell for the first time, in an unspecified context ("Where No Man Has Gone Before" [TOS]). Around the same time, the father of Mallory from "The Apple" (TOS) aids Kirk's entry into Starfleet Academy, where over the course of his first year he is hazed and bullied by Finnegan and romances Ruth ("Shore Leave" [TOS]). His instructors include Ben Finney ("Court Martial" [TOS]), with whom he becomes close friends, and historian John Gill ("Patterns of Force" [TOS]), although the latter need not have been this first year. (The Axanar Peace Mission should go somewhere in here too, if we interpret "new-fledged cadet" in "Whom Gods Destroy" [TOS] to mean one who has recently enrolled.)
c2254:
Kirk graduates as an ensign and is assigned to the
Republic, along with his former instructor Ben Finney ("Court Martial [TOS]), under command of Captain Garrovick ("Obsession" [TOS]). (If we choose to interpret "new-fledged cadet" in "Whom Gods Destroy" [TOS] to mean one who has recently graduated, the Axanar Peace Mission could go here instead.)
c2255:
Having been (or just about to be) promoted to lieutenant, Kirk transfers to the
Farragut along with Garrovick. This is his first sustained deep space assignment ("Obsession" [TOS]). He conducts his first planetary survey of Neural and befriends Tyree ("A Private Little War" [TOS]).
c2257:
The
Farragut is attacked by the dikironium cloud creature, resulting in the deaths of Captain Garrovick and half the crew ("Obsession" [TOS]). Bereaved and feeling himself to have failed in his duties, Lieutenant Kirk becomes emotionally withdrawn and returns to Earth, taking up a teaching position at the Academy, where Gary Mitchell is his student, having just enrolled ("Where No Man Has Gone Before" [TOS]).
(It is not made clear how long Kirk remains at the Academy as an instructor. Eventually, he takes command of a destroyer or equivalent vessel, as per
The Making of Star Trek. This could be before or after Mitchell graduates. If Mitchell was 17 when he entered as well, this would suggest that he was born circa 2240, which would mean the incident on Deneb IV took place circa 2263, and could have been aboard either that ship
or the
Enterprise. The Dimorus incident is undated, so likewise.)
c2261:
Gary Mitchell graduates and Kirk asks for him aboard his first command ("Where No Man Has Gone Before" [TOS]).
c2263:
Kirk takes command of the
Enterprise from Christopher Pike when the latter is promoted to fleet captain ("The Menagerie" [TOS]). Gary Mitchell transfers with him ("Where No Man Has Gone Before" [TOS]).
2265-2270:
The five year mission as depicted in TOS and TAS ("Q2" [VGR]).
Simples!
One thing that's not clear is whether Kirk knew Merik from "Bread and Circuses" (TOS) as a classmate or as a student. Merik "was dropped in his fifth year," which might be taken to call into question the four-year duration of standard Academy training, but the usual assumption is that he was held back.
Anyway, fortunately, it turns out that the Okudas'
dates for Kirk's Academy years as an
overall period (and that for his assuming command of the
Enterprise too) don't really have to be altered, though their dates for the 5YM
do a bit. It's just that what they posit happened
during those years is all sorts of jumbled up. I didn't mean to be too harsh on them, but from what I can see, the nonsensical choices they made with respect to the Mitchell and
Republic references in particular are far more inconsistent and contradictory than the original reference points themselves, despite protestations otherwise.
-
MMoM
