The Autobiography of James T. Kirk Q

[AKingsCrown]

Warning: this thread may contian spoilers from The Autobiography of James T. Kirk.

I'm new to forums in general so please inform me of any mistakes I make in the following:

I'm not a hardcore Star Trek fan, I don't even like science fiction universes all too much but I do enjoy this franchise. I'm reading the autobiography of James T. Kirk; "the story of starfleet's greatest captain"; published in 2015 and edited by David A. Goodman. (If you're still unsure of the book I'm trying to describe, please ask me to elaborate.) I've come to the end of Chapter 8, where the captain and his "new" team protect the Earth from "V'Ger". Could anyone with understanding of this book and the Star Trek universe explain to me the ending of this chapter as I'm finding it difficult to grasp with little Trek knowledge.

To be more specific, V'Ger (Voyager) dissipates after engulfing Decker. If the ship was searching for it's "God" or creator, why disappear after engulfing W. Decker?

The quote: "I looked around; the room was different, but the people were the same" also puzzles me. Is he being literate in this quote? Is the room different? If so, why? What did I miss?

Thank you in advance to any who reply with insight.

 

[Nyotarules]

Watch the movie Star Trek The Motion Picture

 

[AKingsCrown]

Watch the movie Star Trek The Motion Picture

Thank you for the suggestion but I'm reluctant to watch a 2 hours movie from 1979 to better understand a paragraph in this book. I'm looking for a straight-forward answer.

 

[Daddy Todd]

Thank you for the suggestion but I'm reluctant to watch a 2 hours movie from 1979 to better understand a paragraph in this book. I'm looking for a straight-forward answer.

Well, that bit in the book comes directly from the movie. Any answers about what happened — and why — are to be found in the movie. The answers are not straightforward, that’s why we suggest you watch the movie.

 

[AKingsCrown]

Well, that bit in the book comes directly from the movie. Any answers about what happened — and why — are to be found in the movie. The answers are not straightforward, that’s why we suggest you watch the movie.

Awesome.

 

[David cgc]

To be more specific, V'Ger (Voyager) dissipates after engulfing Decker. If the ship was searching for it's "God" or creator, why disappear after engulfing W. Decker?

The book hits the high points, but to provide a bit more context, V'Ger is interpreting its mission from when it was built by Earth astronomers as to learn all that is learnable, and to report that information back to its builder. It assumes its builder must be a being like it, and that it will "report" what it has learned by unifying with the entity that built it, since it thinks in terms of data and patterns (like combining two databases). Spock, McCoy, Kirk, and Decker deduce moments before Decker decides to join with it that V'Ger is also frustrated; it feels that there is, in fact, more to learn, but it has the fullest understanding of the universe it is capable of gaining. It thinks once it has returned to its Creator and show its accomplished its mission, the Creator will explain what V'Ger's purpose now that, as Alexander the Great might've said, there were no new worlds to digitize.

When Decker proves that he is "the Creator" by giving V'Ger the computer instruction to transmit the data it's recorded, it turns its data-gathering machine on Decker, digitizing him and integrating him with itself. At that moment, the addition of Decker's human intuition enhances V'Ger's vast (but uninspired) knowledge, and the combined V'Ger/Decker gestalt is now capable of making the intuitive leap that allow it to apply its knowledge of our universe to transform itself into a new form that exists outside reality as we understand it, and pops off into an alternate dimension or higher level of consciousness or something that, by definition, we cannot begin to understand on a human level to learn all that is learnable about that.

The quote: "I looked around; the room was different, but the people were the same" also puzzles me. Is he being literate in this quote? Is the room different? If so, why? What did I miss?

The Enterprise was rebuilt, remember? The bridge literally looks totally different than how it did when Kirk was on his five-year-mission because the whole ship was remodeled, but he's also reassembled his old crew.

 

[AKingsCrown]

The book hits the high points, but to provide a bit more context, V'Ger is interpreting its mission from when it was built by Earth astronomers as to learn all that is learnable, and to report that information back to its builder. It assumes its builder must be a being like it, and that it will "report" what it has learned by unifying with the entity that built it, since it thinks in terms of data and patterns (like combining two databases). Spock, McCoy, Kirk, and Decker deduce moments before Decker decides to join with it that V'Ger is also frustrated; it feels that there is, in fact, more to learn, but it has the fullest understanding of the universe it is capable of gaining. It thinks once it has returned to its Creator and show its accomplished its mission, the Creator will explain what V'Ger's purpose now that, as Alexander the Great might've said, there were no new worlds to digitize.

When Decker proves that he is "the Creator" by giving V'Ger the computer instruction to transmit the data it's recorded, it turns its data-gathering machine on Decker, digitizing him and integrating him with itself. At that moment, the addition of Decker's human intuition enhances V'Ger's vast (but uninspired) knowledge, and the combined V'Ger/Decker gestalt is now capable of making the intuitive leap that allow it to apply its knowledge of our universe to transform itself into a new form that exists outside reality as we understand it, and pops off into an alternate dimension or higher level of consciousness or something that, by definition, we cannot begin to understand on a human level to learn all that is learnable about that.



The Enterprise was rebuilt, remember? The bridge literally looks totally different than how it did when Kirk was on his five-year-mission because the whole ship was remodeled, but he's also reassembled his old crew.

I understand that the book hits the high points only, which is a shame because it's (in my own opinion) fantastic - probably not the best place to start an interest in the franchise, also. The latter quote was just my misunderstanding - I didn't interpret it as a bigger picture or an appreciation by Kirk. Thank you for explaining this to me, I appreciate the effort you've put into explaining something from a motion picture to a stranger, and I understand now why the "V'Ger" ceased it's threat to Earth.

 

[F. King Daniel]

For what it's worth, I was disappointed by Kirk's biog. I wanted the trashy tell-all biography, not a stately presidential tome.

I guess I have to wait for The Autobiography of Yeoman Rand

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

And I've made no secret of the fact that, from my point of view, informed by the Riley Tarsus IV flashback in Brad Ferguson's A Flag Full of Stars, and numerous details to be found in various Diane Carey "Robert April and Geordie Kirk" novels and other novels covering Kirk's childhood, The Autobiography of James T. Kirk reads like Goodman went out of his way to contradict "prior art." Re-reading Ferguson and Carey recently, I will admit that Goodman's contradictions weren't nearly as bad as I thought they were. But still, the Picard autobiography reads like Goodman had by that time realized that contradicting "prior art" without a really good reason might alienate readers.

 

[The Wormhole]

And I've made no secret of the fact that, from my point of view, informed by the Riley Tarsus IV flashback in Brad Ferguson's A Flag Full of Stars, and numerous details to be found in various Diane Carey "Robert April and Geordie Kirk" novels and other novels covering Kirk's childhood, The Autobiography of James T. Kirk reads like Goodman went out of his way to contradict "prior art." Re-reading Ferguson and Carey recently, I will admit that Goodman's contradictions weren't nearly as bad as I thought they were. But still, the Picard autobiography reads like Goodman had by that time realized that contradicting "prior art" without a really good reason might alienate readers.

Goodman isn't required to follow Pocket's novel continuity, and there's no reason to expect him to.

 

[thribs]

Goodman isn't required to follow Pocket's novel continuity, and there's no reason to expect him to.

Would have been cool if he did though. So we could hear more about this mysterious ancestor who was a lunar commander.

 

[Christopher]

Goodman isn't required to follow Pocket's novel continuity, and there's no reason to expect him to.

Quite right. Trek tie-ins have always had multiple incompatible continuities, and the only thing they need to stay consistent with is screen canon. Continuity between different works has always been a matter of choice, one option available to writers (except during the '90s when it mostly wasn't) rather than a universal requirement.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Would have been cool if he did though. So we could hear more about this mysterious ancestor who was a lunar commander.

Hmm. I find myself thinking about T. H. White's The Once and Future King. Specifically, in The Sword in the Stone (and I believe it was also in The Book of Merlyn, having been transplanted to The Sword in the Stone when it was decided not to publish The Book of Merlyn), when Merlyn sets up a primitive sort of ant farm, and then sends Arthur in, transformed into an ant. From the ants' point of view, there was a sign over the colony entrance: "ALL THAT IS NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY."

Quite frankly, I don't especially want to see either that, or its converse, become the guiding principle of ST fiction. But that doesn't mean I approve of blatant, pointless contradiction of "prior art." (And for the record, I regard the 1939 MGM version of The Wizard of Oz as a "hatchet job," because of the way it played fast and loose with Baum's canon.)

 

[Christopher]

But that doesn't mean I approve of blatant, pointless contradiction of "prior art."

It's not contradiction, it's just offering an alternative. Tie-ins are speculations about what might have happened between or after canonical events. Part of the fun is getting to see different writers offer different speculations. Exploring alternatives is part of creativity.

 

[JD]

And I've made no secret of the fact that, from my point of view, informed by the Riley Tarsus IV flashback in Brad Ferguson's A Flag Full of Stars, and numerous details to be found in various Diane Carey "Robert April and Geordie Kirk" novels and other novels covering Kirk's childhood, The Autobiography of James T. Kirk reads like Goodman went out of his way to contradict "prior art." Re-reading Ferguson and Carey recently, I will admit that Goodman's contradictions weren't nearly as bad as I thought they were. But still, the Picard autobiography reads like Goodman had by that time realized that contradicting "prior art" without a really good reason might alienate readers.

The thing to keep in mind with the autobiographies is that they are by a writer with no connection to the Pocket books, and from a different publisher. There have been a few bits of crossover between the books and comics, and a few times with the games and books, but it has been a rare occurrence in the history for stories from different companies to be consistent with each other. So it's ridiculous to go into these books and actually get mad when they aren't consistent with the Pocket novels.

 

[Therin of Andor]

So it's ridiculous to go into these books and actually get mad when they aren't consistent with the Pocket novels.

There are about four biographical books about Gene Roddenberry and they don't exactly match up either.

 

[Starbreaker]

Thank you for the suggestion but I'm reluctant to watch a 2 hours movie from 1979 to better understand a paragraph in this book. I'm looking for a straight-forward answer.

Are you a teenager? Genuinely curious. The movie still holds up today.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Thank you for the suggestion but I'm reluctant to watch a 2 hours movie from 1979 to better understand a paragraph in this book.

My confusion over dark-haired Dr Chapel in colour pics in the Australian novelisation of TMP, which I read before the movie was released, made me catch up all of TOS that I had missed.

 

[thribs]

Doesn’t he write for Family Guy? Odd pick to write it.
Sounds like the sort of book that Shatner should have collaborated on.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Doesn’t he write for Family Guy? Odd pick to write it.

And the Fururama Star Trek episode.

And now The Orville.