I recently posted a comment on the Trek Movies XI+ forum, about how the makers of the movie have said that they reckon the film's depiction of the first encounter between Kirk and Spock, at a hearing following the Kobayashi Maru incident, happened in much the same way in the original reality. From what I know of the chronologies of Kirk Prime and Spock Prime, I'm not entirely convinced that this is the case. What are your opinions on the matter?
Trek authors - Kirk and Spock's first meetings(s)
- Thread starter EJA
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Here's all the "first meetings" I can think of from the novels:
Collision Course
As teenagers (Kirk's 17, IIRC) they meet in the back of a police car shortly before enlisting in Starfleet. Yes, they're both arrested. It's the Shatnerverse.
Cadet Kirk
A Starfleet Academy YA novel, Cadet Kirk has to shuttle cadets Spock and McCoy some place or other.
Enterprise: The First Adventure
Kirk and Spock meet when Kirk is assigned to the Enterprise as captain. This is the assumption used in most TOS novels.
Collision Course
As teenagers (Kirk's 17, IIRC) they meet in the back of a police car shortly before enlisting in Starfleet. Yes, they're both arrested. It's the Shatnerverse.
Cadet Kirk
A Starfleet Academy YA novel, Cadet Kirk has to shuttle cadets Spock and McCoy some place or other.
Enterprise: The First Adventure
Kirk and Spock meet when Kirk is assigned to the Enterprise as captain. This is the assumption used in most TOS novels.
This one sounded so bad from the back cover blurb that I skipped it in hardback. Picked it up in paperback anticipating the new film and found it a very enjoyable read. Just as believable as an 'origin' story as Trek XI.
Maybe Shatner's is slightly more believable.
Just trying to avoid the eventual pissing match that comes if you compare anything to Trek XI.
I like the meetings in both "Star Trek" and in Collision Course...I've always thought that TOS Jim met Spock when he first took command of the Enterprise.
^ I always thought that too. As for other characters, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" makes it clear that Kirk knew Mitchell at the Academy, but what I've always wondered is how long TOS Kirk and McCoy have known each other. You could make a case either way - in places it seems like they've known each other a long time, but in some of the early episodes it seems equally likely that they've only met recently.
do Kirk and Spock meet in that old DC comic about Kirk's academy days? Titan (iirc) were reprinting it when their old Trek comic died circa 1992... can't seem to find it on Memory Beta...
it had Kirk meeting Mitchell and Carol Marcus and Finney who was on staff at the Academy as well as Finnegan. when the reprint title was canned, it was on a cliffhanger over someone cheating on a test and Kirk going off campus against curfew...
it had Kirk meeting Mitchell and Carol Marcus and Finney who was on staff at the Academy as well as Finnegan. when the reprint title was canned, it was on a cliffhanger over someone cheating on a test and Kirk going off campus against curfew...
^Spock wasn't in the academy story. In the DC comics, Kirk met Spock when he took command of the Enterprise, in the first annual (I hate what they did to poor Number One in that one!)
TOS was always pretty vague when Kirk & Spock may have met. Kirk tells Spock in Amok Time, “In all the years that I've known you, you've never asked for a leave of any sort," implying that they’ve known each other for at least a few years. But in Patterns of Force, Spock comments that while “I studied Earth history from the text he prepared… I never met John Gill.” Kirk replies that “He was my instructor at the Academy.” This exchange seems to imply that Kirk & Spock did not attend Starfleet Academy at the same time, or at the very least were not in the same history class. IMO, Kirk and Spock's conversations in TWOK are rather inconclusive as to whether or not Spock knew about Kirk's Kobayashi Maru test firsthand or not.
While I quite liked the depicition of Kirk & Spock's first meeting in the 2009 movie, in the Prime Universe, it seems more likely to me that they met around the time Kirk took over the Enterprise. As far as I'm concerned, the first DC Star Trek Annual is the way it happened. Love that story!
While I quite liked the depicition of Kirk & Spock's first meeting in the 2009 movie, in the Prime Universe, it seems more likely to me that they met around the time Kirk took over the Enterprise. As far as I'm concerned, the first DC Star Trek Annual is the way it happened. Love that story!
I always thought it's quite simple, natural and realistic that Kirk met both Spock and McCoy only when he became Captain of the Enterprise.
It's that silly notion that best friends need to know each other from playschool, and that those friends will stay together in the military until retirement. If Hollywood were to do a prequel to Lethal Weapon, it would be about Riggs and Murtaugh solving crimes in primary school.
ST XI was ridiculously over the top. Everyone knows each other, they are all in the same Academy year, and what the hell does McCoy do in Iowa? Kirk met 4 people in Iowa that were all going to end up on the Enterprise. Then he met Spock, also going to end up on the Enterprise. Oh, and Spock has an affair with the girl Kirk tried to hit on in Iowa. And that girl also happens to be the roommate of the girl that helps him hacking the Kobayashi Maru scenario (and she even takes part in it!). Which happens to be programmed by Spock. AND the girl happens to listen to the subspace transmission which is the major clue that saves the ship, and that Kirk just happens to overhear. And then of course Scotty, on a random outpost on a random planet due to a random decision by Spock and a totally random coincidence. Sulu, who's already a helmsman although he wore blue and was a physicist in TOS at the beginning, saves the ship due to a screw up. What a lucky coincidence, too. Surprisingly, only Chekov seems to be kinda flawless, since he's not connected to anyone and is no coincidence magnet, but then he's not the same age the original Chekov was, and suddenly a Wesley-type superbrain.
And then it's funny when the writers say that the characters in the original timeline could have met the same ways. None of the meetings in ST XI could have happened the same way in the original timeline.
It's that silly notion that best friends need to know each other from playschool, and that those friends will stay together in the military until retirement. If Hollywood were to do a prequel to Lethal Weapon, it would be about Riggs and Murtaugh solving crimes in primary school.
ST XI was ridiculously over the top. Everyone knows each other, they are all in the same Academy year, and what the hell does McCoy do in Iowa? Kirk met 4 people in Iowa that were all going to end up on the Enterprise. Then he met Spock, also going to end up on the Enterprise. Oh, and Spock has an affair with the girl Kirk tried to hit on in Iowa. And that girl also happens to be the roommate of the girl that helps him hacking the Kobayashi Maru scenario (and she even takes part in it!). Which happens to be programmed by Spock. AND the girl happens to listen to the subspace transmission which is the major clue that saves the ship, and that Kirk just happens to overhear. And then of course Scotty, on a random outpost on a random planet due to a random decision by Spock and a totally random coincidence. Sulu, who's already a helmsman although he wore blue and was a physicist in TOS at the beginning, saves the ship due to a screw up. What a lucky coincidence, too. Surprisingly, only Chekov seems to be kinda flawless, since he's not connected to anyone and is no coincidence magnet, but then he's not the same age the original Chekov was, and suddenly a Wesley-type superbrain.
And then it's funny when the writers say that the characters in the original timeline could have met the same ways. None of the meetings in ST XI could have happened the same way in the original timeline.
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Kirk is a couple of years younger than Spock, so while there'd be a little bit of overlap in their Academy years, Spock was a junior while Kirk was a freshman. Not much chance of a lot of interaction.
The implication is also there that Spock was assigned to the Enterprise right out of the Academy and just stayed there. Remember, Spock is only a couple of years older than Kirk, so Kirk wouldn't even be taking the Kobayashi Maru test until Spock is out on his first assignment.
So, what we can safely conclude at this point of the rundown is that somebody else programmed the KM scenario, and that if Kirk and Spock met at all, it was passing each other in the hallway. Even in "Where No Man Has Gone Before", they're not exactly the brothers-in-arms that they are in later episodes.
Now, what Abrams did was delay the construction of the Enterprise by about ten years (thus throwing Spock's service history out the airlock), delay Kirk's entry into the Academy by about eight years, and just to make things even weirder, have McCoy attend the Academy, instead of a more plausible six-week officers' training course at Starfleet Medical (there is more than a small bit of evidence from TOS that McCoy never went to the Academy).
The implication is also there that Spock was assigned to the Enterprise right out of the Academy and just stayed there. Remember, Spock is only a couple of years older than Kirk, so Kirk wouldn't even be taking the Kobayashi Maru test until Spock is out on his first assignment.
So, what we can safely conclude at this point of the rundown is that somebody else programmed the KM scenario, and that if Kirk and Spock met at all, it was passing each other in the hallway. Even in "Where No Man Has Gone Before", they're not exactly the brothers-in-arms that they are in later episodes.
Now, what Abrams did was delay the construction of the Enterprise by about ten years (thus throwing Spock's service history out the airlock), delay Kirk's entry into the Academy by about eight years, and just to make things even weirder, have McCoy attend the Academy, instead of a more plausible six-week officers' training course at Starfleet Medical (there is more than a small bit of evidence from TOS that McCoy never went to the Academy).
Well except for the fact the Piper was the head Doc before McCoy showed up.
One tiny problem with your example Riggs and Murtaugh's first meeting was shown, it was in the first film.
I knohow. They would do it anyway. The A-Team also met totally random somewhere in Mexico, 8 years before the crime they didn't commit in the new A-Team movie, instead of simply being composed during their time in the special forces, which would have been more realistic, and which was the impression I got from the show. But in the end, it was just as silly as in Trek XI.
And that McCoy actually came aboard AFTER Kirk became Captain is even better.
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The date/time markers involved would be:
Spock's arguement with his father ( 18 years prior to Journey To Babel). So that places Spock's enrollment in Starfleet Academy in the year 2250.
Kirk's enrollment in Starfleet Academy in 2251.(presumedly at age 18 if we go by his age in the Deadly Years)
So Spock would have been one year ahead of Kirk. If for some reason Kirk got in at age 17 they would have been in the same class. Perhaps Spock, as a computer expert, was called in as a witness in Kirk's hearing after the Kobayashi Maru test. Alternately as a post graduate Spock may have been asked to design a Kobayashi Maru for Kirk's graduating class and met Kirk when he beat it.
Spock's arguement with his father ( 18 years prior to Journey To Babel). So that places Spock's enrollment in Starfleet Academy in the year 2250.
Kirk's enrollment in Starfleet Academy in 2251.(presumedly at age 18 if we go by his age in the Deadly Years)
So Spock would have been one year ahead of Kirk. If for some reason Kirk got in at age 17 they would have been in the same class. Perhaps Spock, as a computer expert, was called in as a witness in Kirk's hearing after the Kobayashi Maru test. Alternately as a post graduate Spock may have been asked to design a Kobayashi Maru for Kirk's graduating class and met Kirk when he beat it.
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Well, the first meeting between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson was clearly depicted in A Study in Scarlet, but that didn't stop Young Sherlock Holmes from depicting their first meeting many years earlier as schoolboys. (Although that film did have a disclaimer stating it was an alternative interpretation.)
I liked the flashback story in Shatner's Captain's Peril, where he argues/debates all the time with Spock (who, IIRC, he hasn't known very long) during one of the first adventures of the 5-year mission. I haven't read it in a long time, but I don't remember a mention of when/where they met. Of course, the framing story of that flashback was Kirk investigating Picard's "murder" while vacationing on Bajor, so... 
I actually gave up on 'Enterprise: The First Adventure' about a third of the way through, something I very rarely do with novels. Even so, it probably is how I imagined Kirk & Spock meeting, up until the new film, anyway.
"The Making of Star Trek" says Kirk entered the Academy at age 17, so you appeared to have lined up those two points for the moment.
Going a bit further, "Yesteryear" narrows down Spock's age somewhat. The kahs-wan ordeal is stated as taking place thirty years earlier, when Spock was seven years old (simple math, Spock was 37 at the time of the episode).
With TAS serving as the fourth season, back up two years to "The Deadly Years" and we have Kirk at 34 and Spock ~35.
So, upon further review...Okay, so Kirk and Spock appear to have been at the Academy at the same time, possibly in the same class.
I think it's safe to say that each graduating class has, at least, several thousand cadets. It is entirely possible that they never met, or was at most fleeting, ala Shatner's version. My high school graduating class had around five hundred in it, and I only knew maybe twenty.
Further, Kirk was on the command track, while Spock had no interest in command, so probably not a lot of overlap there. The fact that Spock never took the KM test speaks volumes on that front (and no, the angle that he never took it because he wrote it doesn't work; any decent programmer would run the thing several times himself just to make sure the damn thing works).
I agree with those that believe that Prime!McCoy was probably a direct commision. There are a few signs here and there. It also better fits the character IMO.
It escapes me right now, but wasn't there a story where Kirk was going through some sort of recovery on a Starbase where McCoy was serving? It was prior to either being assigned to the Big E?
It escapes me right now, but wasn't there a story where Kirk was going through some sort of recovery on a Starbase where McCoy was serving? It was prior to either being assigned to the Big E?
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