Theory & revisions re: Kirk's rapid promotion(s) [3 merged]

[Mr. Crane]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

The one element of the Trek movie, which I had quite a problem with, though the rest of the film was awesome, was that Kirk apparently became captain of the flagship over other, more experienced officers. <snip>

Opinions/comments?

Haven't you posted this thread once already, or something very close to it?

Oh yeah! Haha! - Shows how long it's been since I was here - I totally forgot about that! Oh well, I've added some new ideas to this new post...

 

[Jax]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

My take has less words ...

Pike is now an Admiral and can pick his replacement, he chooses Kirk because he generally believes he is made to be a great Captain. Saving Earth and maybe even the Federation kind of makes you a very important person who can get anything he wants and for all we know Spock prime may of spoken to Pike or Starfleet.

 

[Mr. Crane]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

My take has less words ...

Pike is now an Admiral and can pick his replacement, he chooses Kirk because he generally believes he is made to be a great Captain. Saving Earth and maybe even the Federation kind of makes you a very important person who can get anything he wants and for all we know Spock prime may of spoken to Pike or Starfleet.

...But did Kirk really save the Earth? It was Chekov who came up with the method of sneaking up on Nero's ship, Scott who figured out how to get them in and out, and Spock who actually figured out how to fly the "Jellyfish" and stopped the Narada. Kirk pretty much just covered for Spock and rescued Pike... Why did the others not get promoted to "captain"? by that logic? Saving the earth seemed to be a team effort...

 

[MNM]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

I had no particular problem with Kirk being promoted to a full captain after the events of the movie, what I did find strange was him being promoted from cadet to first officer for no discernable reason during the film in the first place.

 

[Jax]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

My take has less words ...

Pike is now an Admiral and can pick his replacement, he chooses Kirk because he generally believes he is made to be a great Captain. Saving Earth and maybe even the Federation kind of makes you a very important person who can get anything he wants and for all we know Spock prime may of spoken to Pike or Starfleet.

...But did Kirk really save the Earth? It was Chekov who came up with the method of sneaking up on Nero's ship, Scott who figured out how to get them in and out, and Spock who actually figured out how to fly the "Jellyfish" and stopped the Narada. Kirk pretty much just covered for Spock and rescued Pike... Why did the others not get promoted to "captain"? by that logic? Saving the earth seemed to be a team effort...

If Kirk didn't take command then those plans would of never happened and Kirk did rescue Pike too. Joint effort of course but Kirk was in command at the time and lead the team.

 

[Mr. Crane]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

My take has less words ...

Pike is now an Admiral and can pick his replacement, he chooses Kirk because he generally believes he is made to be a great Captain. Saving Earth and maybe even the Federation kind of makes you a very important person who can get anything he wants and for all we know Spock prime may of spoken to Pike or Starfleet.

...But did Kirk really save the Earth? It was Chekov who came up with the method of sneaking up on Nero's ship, Scott who figured out how to get them in and out, and Spock who actually figured out how to fly the "Jellyfish" and stopped the Narada. Kirk pretty much just covered for Spock and rescued Pike... Why did the others not get promoted to "captain"? by that logic? Saving the earth seemed to be a team effort...

If Kirk didn't take command then those plans would of never happened and Kirk did rescue Pike too. Joint effort of course but Kirk was in command at the time and lead the team.

So promote him to captain of the flagship over all other potential candidates, with perhaps decades of command experience? I would think all the other starship captains and potential captains from the pools of experienced first officers would cry, "foul" if that happened. It just is a big logic hole in the movie, in my opinion.

 

[DontFeedPhil]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

I don agree with most of the ideas the OP has made up to fit the story. But I dont see how hard of a concept a command/officers class is. Meaning people like Chekov might never be a Captain cause he was just a cadet or whatever. But Kirk was in a Officer class cause of his high scores...

 

[pookha]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

kirk was probably already a lieutenant or possibly even a lieutant commander when the crisis happens in the movie.
we see from some of the other characters they already have officer ranks and mccoy already is considered part of the senior medical staff and next in line to being the chief medical officer.

i suspect the cadets before their senior terms have already spent some time out on a ship .

we also know that seven ships were destroyed so that there is going to shake up the promtion process,.

and kirk is the ones who sees the danger of letting nero go along uchallenged.
by time enteprise had rejoined the rest of the fleet they might have lost earth and even more federation worlds.

with that happening the klingons or romulans might have decided to take advangtage of the situation.

and this kirk did what the other one was good at.
listen to his people and then decide on the best action .

 

[Admiral_Young]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

I look at Kirk's promotion as a simple battlefield promotion. He's clearly a cadet when the hearings are interrupted by the distress call from Vulcan. Kirk illegally boards the Enterprise thanks to some quick thinking by McCoy. Then Pike gives him his first battlefield promotion to Lt. and makes him first officer and Spock acting captain. Then afterwards he helps save Earth and destroy's the Narada and stops Nero...the Admiralty probably thinks this is enough to accelerate his battlefeild promotion to Captain.

I don't like the quick thing...I would have done it differently with Kirk and Spock and the rest of the crew serving under Captain Pike. Pike having his accident and Kirk assuming command. This aspect bugged me too.

 

[pookha]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

i do wish we had more background on kirk while in the academy.
i suspect he may had already done some amazing stuff to get through in three years.

 

[MaxPower]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

I loved Star Trek XI but I have to say that it bugged me too death that Kirk went from Cadet to 1st officer then became Captain of the Enterprise.

I have two question was Kirk in his final year of being a Cadet or was he in his third year of four?

Also has anyone ever heard of anything thing like this in real life happening?

The only thing I have ever run across was Home Depot fast tracking former military to be store managers in a two year program.

 

[pookha]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

if we go by wrath of khan the koybashi maru seems to be some type of senior or even graduate level thing for people who already are officer/ cadets.

so i suspect kirk indeed was in his senior year.

 

[Cyke101]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

My take has less words ...

Pike is now an Admiral and can pick his replacement, he chooses Kirk because he generally believes he is made to be a great Captain. Saving Earth and maybe even the Federation kind of makes you a very important person who can get anything he wants and for all we know Spock prime may of spoken to Pike or Starfleet.

...But did Kirk really save the Earth? It was Chekov who came up with the method of sneaking up on Nero's ship, Scott who figured out how to get them in and out, and Spock who actually figured out how to fly the "Jellyfish" and stopped the Narada. Kirk pretty much just covered for Spock and rescued Pike... Why did the others not get promoted to "captain"? by that logic? Saving the earth seemed to be a team effort...

But you need someone to coordinate all those efforts. Picard could have a maneuver named after him, but he needed a pilot, a tactical officer, an engineer, etc. etc. Riker's great at leading expeditions, even though he isn't truly a scientist or archaelogist and thus assigns and organizes the proper personnel to help him.

Which gives quite a bit of credit to nuKirk. He was in command of a lot of talented people, but had any of the other main characters failed in their mission, nuKirk would have failed, too. And that right there shows how vital a crew is to a leader and vice versa.

 

[Mr. Crane]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

My take has less words ...

Pike is now an Admiral and can pick his replacement, he chooses Kirk because he generally believes he is made to be a great Captain. Saving Earth and maybe even the Federation kind of makes you a very important person who can get anything he wants and for all we know Spock prime may of spoken to Pike or Starfleet.

...But did Kirk really save the Earth? It was Chekov who came up with the method of sneaking up on Nero's ship, Scott who figured out how to get them in and out, and Spock who actually figured out how to fly the "Jellyfish" and stopped the Narada. Kirk pretty much just covered for Spock and rescued Pike... Why did the others not get promoted to "captain"? by that logic? Saving the earth seemed to be a team effort...

But you need someone to coordinate all those efforts. Picard could have a maneuver named after him, but he needed a pilot, a tactical officer, an engineer, etc. etc. Riker's great at leading expeditions, even though he isn't truly a scientist or archaelogist and thus assigns and organizes the proper personnel to help him.

Which gives quite a bit of credit to nuKirk. He was in command of a lot of talented people, but had any of the other main characters failed in their mission, nuKirk would have failed, too. And that right there shows how vital a crew is to a leader and vice versa.

True enough. He did make some key command decisions. I think that might have warranted a promotion to second or first officer, but not captain. I think Kirk would have needed more time shadowing an experienced captain like Pike before being given a captaincy. If I was an officer who had served in Starfleet for several years, I wouldn' t want to serve on a ship commanded by a "fresh out of the academy cadet". He has no track record for diplomacy experience, first contact experience, etc. - why would they give him the FLAGSHIP, a vessel that would likely be sent on the fleet's most sensitive missions, if the missions of the Enterprise-D were any example. Picard had years of command experience under his belt before they made him captain of the flagship. Haha... maybe they should have just promoted acting ensign Wesley Crusher to captain when his decisions helped to save a planet (I think he did something like that for an alien world in one of the seasons - led a science team to help prevent a planet's core from exploding or something...)

 

[Mr. Crane]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

...But did Kirk really save the Earth? It was Chekov who came up with the method of sneaking up on Nero's ship, Scott who figured out how to get them in and out, and Spock who actually figured out how to fly the "Jellyfish" and stopped the Narada. Kirk pretty much just covered for Spock and rescued Pike... Why did the others not get promoted to "captain"? by that logic? Saving the earth seemed to be a team effort...

But you need someone to coordinate all those efforts. Picard could have a maneuver named after him, but he needed a pilot, a tactical officer, an engineer, etc. etc. Riker's great at leading expeditions, even though he isn't truly a scientist or archaelogist and thus assigns and organizes the proper personnel to help him.

Which gives quite a bit of credit to nuKirk. He was in command of a lot of talented people, but had any of the other main characters failed in their mission, nuKirk would have failed, too. And that right there shows how vital a crew is to a leader and vice versa.

True enough. He did make some key command decisions. I think that might have warranted a promotion to second or first officer, but not captain. I think Kirk would have needed more time shadowing an experienced captain like Pike before being given a captaincy. If I was an officer who had served in Starfleet for several years, I wouldn' t want to serve on a ship commanded by a "fresh out of the academy cadet". He has no track record for diplomacy experience, first contact experience, etc. - why would they give him the FLAGSHIP, a vessel that would likely be sent on the fleet's most sensitive missions, if the missions of the Enterprise-D were any example. Picard had years of command experience under his belt before they made him captain of the flagship. Haha... maybe they should have just promoted acting ensign Wesley Crusher to captain when his decisions helped to save a planet (I think he did something like that for an alien world in one of the seasons - led a science team to help prevent a planet's core from exploding or something...)

... how would Riker have felt if, in Best of Both Worlds, Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher had figured out a way to stop the Borg, but Picard as Locutus was also destroyed. Starfleet was so grateful to Crusher that they promoted him to captain of the Enterprise over Riker, Data, etc. How would all these other officers feel about that promotion. I think you'd get some tranfers off Captain Crusher's ship...

 

[number6]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

Well that's not what happened. He got promoted to Captain.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

It's Kirk we're talking about. He couldn't have done anything other than jumped straight to captain after only 3 years at space academy!

He'd stand out like a sore thumb at that Wesley-factory. Kirk = saves the universe on a regular basis. Wesley = cries about nanites, gets told "It's time for your haircut" by his mum, and saves a ship full of labotomized idiots (bar Picard and Data) two or three times.

I wouldn't have been happy if the end scene skipped a few years. It's Captain Kirk! The Captain Kirk!
Besides, i'm sure they'll do a novel or comic series one day filling in what he did those three years at the academy. Probably saved the world at least twice!

 

[Ovation]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

In the American Civil War, many officers were rapidly advanced to very high ranks only to see them subsequently reduced considerably after the war was over. Some of those finished their careers at much lower ranks than they held in the war while others re-climbed the ranks.

I just look at Kirk's promotion as similar to the swift rank promotions in the Civil War (where young junior officers did rise above older ones as in Kirk's example, though perhaps not so spectacularly--it was real life, after all, not a sci-fi fantasy world) that did not get reversed (with the losses at Vulcan and, perhaps, at the Laurentian system, one could argue the depleted ranks of Starfleet created a situation not unlike that of the Civil War in terms of officer promotions).

I think it could have been handled a little differently to appear a bit less radical a promotion (a blurb of "2/3/4 (take your pick) years later" just before the promotion to captain scene would have done nicely) but I don't think it is all that serious a shortcoming. This is James T. Kirk, after all.

 

[Cyke101]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

But you need someone to coordinate all those efforts. Picard could have a maneuver named after him, but he needed a pilot, a tactical officer, an engineer, etc. etc. Riker's great at leading expeditions, even though he isn't truly a scientist or archaelogist and thus assigns and organizes the proper personnel to help him.

Which gives quite a bit of credit to nuKirk. He was in command of a lot of talented people, but had any of the other main characters failed in their mission, nuKirk would have failed, too. And that right there shows how vital a crew is to a leader and vice versa.

True enough. He did make some key command decisions. I think that might have warranted a promotion to second or first officer, but not captain. I think Kirk would have needed more time shadowing an experienced captain like Pike before being given a captaincy. If I was an officer who had served in Starfleet for several years, I wouldn' t want to serve on a ship commanded by a "fresh out of the academy cadet". He has no track record for diplomacy experience, first contact experience, etc. - why would they give him the FLAGSHIP, a vessel that would likely be sent on the fleet's most sensitive missions, if the missions of the Enterprise-D were any example. Picard had years of command experience under his belt before they made him captain of the flagship. Haha... maybe they should have just promoted acting ensign Wesley Crusher to captain when his decisions helped to save a planet (I think he did something like that for an alien world in one of the seasons - led a science team to help prevent a planet's core from exploding or something...)

... how would Riker have felt if, in Best of Both Worlds, Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher had figured out a way to stop the Borg, but Picard as Locutus was also destroyed. Starfleet was so grateful to Crusher that they promoted him to captain of the Enterprise over Riker, Data, etc. How would all these other officers feel about that promotion. I think you'd get some tranfers off Captain Crusher's ship...

I think you're exaggerating to make your point. Even if Crusher figured out a way to stop the Borg, Riker would still have to implement the plan, something that Pike couldn't do as he was incapacitated but promoted Kirk before that. Wesley was never in a command position to use a plan, whereas Pike and Spock basically maneuvered Kirk into such a role.

And in BoBW, who came up with the plan anyway? Wesley's mom, Data, and Picard himself, not Capt. Riker. Even then, a few episodes after that had the occasional official congratulate and praise Riker for saving Earth from the Borg (as opposed to praising Beverly, Data, and Picard himself). So your example is moot.

 

[Franklin]

Re: Kirk Cadet to Captain in one easy step? - My Theories (minor spoil

Al Kaline was an incredibly young 19 in his first full season with the Tigers. He hit a respectable .276 in 504 at bats. The next year, at only 20, he hit a robust .340 with 27 home runs. He went on to have a Hall of Fame career.
Bob Feller won 17 games for the Indians at age 19, and 24 at age 20, 27 at age 21, and 25 at age 22 (then he went into the military during World War II). After the war, he picked up his career where it left off and like Kaline, went on to have a Hall of Fame career.

It is very unusual for players as young as Kaline and Feller to make it to the big leagues. It's even more unusual for them to immediately establish themselves there. It's rare for them to do well that young. It's simply incredible for them to excel. They are a breed unto themselves. Truly naturals.

In his own context, Kirk was that rare breed. He showed Pike and everyone else that despite his age, he had all the tools necessary to not only be a starship captain, but to be an outstanding one. If a person is ready, give that person a chance. Kirk was a natural. Why stick him off somewhere else for five or six years "to gain experience" when he already exhibits the traits of a great leader? Don't waste him. Get him into the lineup.