Starbase Montgomery

[ST-321]

So what's the story behind the name Starbase Montgomery as mentioned in TNG's The Icarus Factor?

Most starbases have a number, yet Starbase Montgomery not only has a name, but one they mentioned an inordinate number of times in that episode. It really felt as if the writers had promised someone named Montgomery that they would get their name in the episode and they just kept saying it over and over.

Is there a story behind this?

 

[MacLeod]

Or it was a not of the head to one of Starfleet's most famous engineers, Montgomery Scott.

 

[Timo]

I don't think it was ever established that Montgomery Scott would be all that famous. A henchman to the famous Jim Kirk, yes - but our TNG heroes really go "Kirk... Kirk...? Oh, Kirk!" in "The Naked Now". Supposedly, Starfleet has plenty of heroes, and TOS just gives us a snapshot of one particular era of heroism through a relatively narrow lens.

As for Starbase Montgomery, a Starbase identified by a dull number would get equally many mentions in the average episode; Starfleet personnel are repetitive like that, for whatever reason. There need not be a story behind this one, either, then. Although there very well could be one.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[m.lp.ql.m]

Named presciently for Anthony Montgomery who played Mayweather in ST:E?

 

[TwoJakes]

Strange thing is not the use of Montgomery, but the repeated need to place the word Starbase in front of it. The crew of a Navy ship head toward Pearl Harbor would be more likely to casually refer to their destination as simply "Pearl" than Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

 

[Timo]

TOS had a bit of accidental verisimilitude there: as everything was in flux in the early days, the heroes spoke "casually" about their employer, applying "nicknames" such as Space Central, when they "really" were discussing Starfleet and its various aspects, later well-established in the more stilted "standard" or "formal" terminology.

TNG heroes are different, raising redundancy to an art form. Then again, what else should we expect from people who, judging by their user interfaces, are fluent in random strings of numbers?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mysterion]

TNG heroes are different, raising redundancy to an art form.

Perhaps no more so than when Capt. Picard ordered course be set to the homeworld of "the Imperial Klingon Empire".

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Well for starters, they probably wouldn't have named it for Montgomery Scott and his first name. Would YOU want to call an important installation Starbase Fred?

In any case, there's also Starbase Earhart (aka Farspace Station Earhart) where that jerkwad Ensign Picard and his cronies once fixed a game of dom-jot. So it's not a unique thing. Possibly it was a nickname that for whatever reason passed into the vernacular and it became far better known to everyone as that name rather than "Starbase 404" or whatever random number got picked out of the hat.

Mark

 

[Finn]

Perhaps no more so than when Capt. Picard ordered course be set to the homeworld of "the Imperial Klingon Empire".

Wasn't it to the capital city of the empire on the said homeworld. I really found it odd. It'd be like a Klingon Captain somewhere inside Klingon space telling his helm officer to set a course for Paris.

 

[ST-321]

As for Starbase Montgomery, a Starbase identified by a dull number would get equally many mentions in the average episode; Starfleet personnel are repetitive like that, for whatever reason. There need not be a story behind this one, either, then. Although there very well could be one.

Timo Saloniemi

I don't know, they really pushed the name hard at the opening of the episode. Take a look:

Captain's log, Stardate 42686.4. We are en route to Starbase Montgomery for engineering consultations prompted by minor readout anomalies.

DATA: I would consider them insignificant.
RIKER: What if you're wrong? Sorry. But what if it is more than a mere discrepancy?
LAFORGE: Then I'd say we have a problem.
PICARD: Agreed. We'll have Starbase Montgomery give us an independent reading.
DATA: Even if the molecular level controls have failed, we can still recrystallize the dilithium without outside help.
LAFORGE: Don't worry, Data. My ego isn't at stake here.
DATA: Perhaps we can reprogram the system to correct the readout variables
PICARD: Well, that's certainly another option, but as we're stopping at Starbase Montgomery anyway, we'll let them do the analysis.
RIKER: I don't recall Starbase Montgomery on the mission itinerary
PICARD: I think we could all use a twelve hour layover. Besides, I've just received some personnel transfer directives. Priority matter,
RIKER: Boarding or disembarking?
WESLEY: Captain Picard. We're within hailing range of Starbase Montgomery.

It is mentioned five times before the opening credits roll. It just seemed excessive to me.

 

[nx1701g]

So what's the story behind the name Starbase Montgomery as mentioned in TNG's The Icarus Factor?

Most starbases have a number, yet Starbase Montgomery not only has a name, but one they mentioned an inordinate number of times in that episode. It really felt as if the writers had promised someone named Montgomery that they would get their name in the episode and they just kept saying it over and over.

Is there a story behind this?

If I recall correctly the Starbase was located on a planet. Maybe the planet was named Montgomery?

 

[F. King Daniel]

The novels had Starbase Vanguard, the new movie has Starbase Yorktown. Maybe they've got numbers too but nobody uses them? And maybe the numbered ones have names too but shit ones like Terok Nor?

 

[Arpy]

Perhaps no more so than when Capt. Picard ordered course be set to the homeworld of "the Imperial Klingon Empire".

I always thought "The Klingon Imperial Empire" was the Klingon Empire's official name for itself. Is it redundant? I think that's the point. Think of "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea" being the official name for North Korea. [Soviet Klingon] Big Klingon boss insists The Empire is strong and conquer-y and IMPERIAL! [/Soviet Klingon]

 

[Timo]

...All the more so when it in fact lacks an Emperor!

Perhaps it is lacking in other traditionally imperial characteristics as well, say, having no subject peoples but the Klingons themselves, and needs all the more bolstering for that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Finn]

Does the Romulans have an emperor? We've seen the senate. I don't recall anyone mentioning a emperor or even an empress.

 

[Timo]

An empress was mentioned offhand in VOY "The Q and the Grey", but when Q speaks with himself, we can expect all sorts of unreal, parallel or past/future things to get a mention...

Actually, "the Romulan Empress" was mentioned specifically, as in "I could have married the Romulan Empress if I wanted". I'd expect this sort of language to be used only if there were a specific Empress currently ruling over Romulus - or if the whole of Romulan history only ever featured a single Empress, whose memory endures. Otherwise, it ought to be "I could have married a Romulan Empress if I wanted"!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Finn]

But if they staged a coup by killing the senate, wouldn't that mean there was no emperor/ress, or that he or she was just a figurehead like the Queen of England?

 

[Timo]

Offing the Senate appeared to be a fairly minor part of Shinzon's coup. He apparently brought Romulus to its knees before the big conspiracy assassinated the Senate, or else there would not have been this scene where the Romulan military pleads the Senate to ally itself with this powerful Reman leader...

With his giant genocide tool, Shinzon would have ruled over Romulus regardless of what the Senate or the Empress decreed. But those Romulans who made Shinzon's victory possible in the first place would have wanted their political enemies killed anyway, because sooner or later they would have to kill Shinzon, too, and then there would be no orbital madman for use as a proxy.

Whether the Empress existed at the time (or was part of some other realm that Q could access) isn't necessarily telling us much about what power she held, then. Rome here on Earth did quite nicely in a setup where the Emperor had all the power (insofar as the military allowed him to live) but the Senate still existed to rubber-stamp his decisions. If this were true of Romulus here, we could simply assume that the political faction that gave Shinzon his victory was the faction of the Empress, and that the Empress was happy to stand aside once Shinzon and the conspirators had removed her political enemies.

Timo Saloniemi