Trek authors - Kirk and Spock's first meetings(s)

[Destructor]

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.

Agreed. And Spock was also a big nerd who probably kept to himself while Kirk was devoting his time to chasin' skirts.

This might also explain why Spock never met John Gill- he didn't take his class. There are loads of lecturers at my Uni who I never met.

 

[captcalhoun]

Kirk wasn't a skirt chaser at the Academy. he was a 'walking stack of books' cf Gary Mitchell, WNMHGB

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Spock not taking the command track makes sense all of the way up until he is XO of the Enterprise. Then it doesnt make sense because why would you have a second-in-command who does not have command training?

Besides I take dates in TOS with a grain of salt. I have always thought that Kirk was the young go-getter who has a command earlier than most officers, and Spock was the experienced officer.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Spock may have taken command training later, perhaps after serving with Pike and before serving with Kirk. Also, there may be more that one test similar to the Kobayashi Maru. Perhaps you're assigned a particular test based on the results of your psych test. Maybe Spock took the Exxon Valdez. Not a no win scenario since his psych tests indicated a different test was more appropriate.

 

[Ronald Held]

I believe that Kirk and Spock never interacted much or got to know each other until on the Enterprise. I would expect Spock would keep to himself as much as was allowed.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

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.

Personally, I always thought it was rather obvious that Kirk & McCoy had had a longstanding friendship well before they got to the Enterprise. In McCoy's first episode, The Cobomite Manuever, McCoy makes a comment about the young navigator Bailey is reminding Kirk of himself "11 years ago." That's a pretty speciifc figure to be throwing out if you didn't know the person for at least that long. Kirk & McCoy had an easy familiarity with each other throughout the show that speaks to them knowing each other for a long time.

 

[BillJ]

Kirk & McCoy had an easy familiarity with each other throughout the show that speaks to them knowing each other for a long time.

Agreed.

 

[Captain Robert April]

One could theorize that perhaps McCoy was a part of the Farragut's medical staff while Kirk was a part of the crew, but that runs up against "Obsession"; even if McCoy didn't come aboard until after the disaster, he still would've known about it, instead of having to be reminded about it thirteen years later.

Here's a hypothetical: McCoy was the chief surgeon on that destroyer that Kirk commanded before Enterprise, and his knowledge of Kirk's younger days owes more to late night bull sessions between the two of them over drinks than a lot of direct knowledge, along with having to review the captain's medical history from time to time, which would include a lot of biographical information. Later, when Kirk was assigned to the Enterprise, he naturally tried to get as many personnel of his own choice on board, starting with Gary Mitchell, then later McCoy with the retirement of Dr. Piper.

Sound like a plan?

 

[bok2384]

IIRC, Crisis on Centaurus has Kirk and McCoy meeting on a starbase in 2255, after Kirk had been injured during a battle on the Farragut and was shipped to the base where McCoy treated him and they became close friends. My Brother's Keeper: Enterprise goes on to state the Kirk and McCoy later served together (and with Gary Mitchell) aboard the USS Constitution in circa 2257.

So these sources, and many others, confirm that Kirk and McCoy were friends for over 10 years before he was assigned to the Enterprise.

 

[JarodRussell]

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.

Personally, I always thought it was rather obvious that Kirk & McCoy had had a longstanding friendship well before they got to the Enterprise. In McCoy's first episode, The Cobomite Manuever, McCoy makes a comment about the young navigator Bailey is reminding Kirk of himself "11 years ago." That's a pretty speciifc figure to be throwing out if you didn't know the person for at least that long. Kirk & McCoy had an easy familiarity with each other throughout the show that speaks to them knowing each other for a long time.

Or "11 years" is simply the age difference between Kirk and Bailey.

 

[Stevil2001]

The YA novel Aftershock posits that Kirk and McCoy met briefly when Kirk beat McCoy in a soccer match at the Academy, and then Cadet Kirk adds that they went on a mission together (with Spock) shortly thereafter.

In A Choice of Catastrophes, Michael and I went with the idea that Kirk and McCoy had indeed met in the past, though not at the Academy.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

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.

Personally, I always thought it was rather obvious that Kirk & McCoy had had a longstanding friendship well before they got to the Enterprise. In McCoy's first episode, The Cobomite Manuever, McCoy makes a comment about the young navigator Bailey is reminding Kirk of himself "11 years ago." That's a pretty speciifc figure to be throwing out if you didn't know the person for at least that long. Kirk & McCoy had an easy familiarity with each other throughout the show that speaks to them knowing each other for a long time.

Or "11 years" is simply the age difference between Kirk and Bailey.

That's the other clear implication in that line of dialogue. The first is that McCoy knew what Kirk was like as a person 11 years earlier.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Just thought of something else concerning the timing of Kirk & McCoy's first meeting: In "Shore Leave", when Kirk tells McCoy about his "positively grim" character while he was at the Academy, it seems pretty clear from the context of the conversation that McCoy did not know Jim Kirk in those days. Since TOS typically put Kirk's Academy days about 15 year prior, we can more or less pinpoint their first meeting as 11-15 years prior.

 

[Captain Robert April]

^ Good point about "Shore Leave". McCoy knew Kirk was "very serious" at the Academy, but not that he was "positively grim", which he would've known had he been there at the time.

This also plays to the stance that, contrary to JJ's portrayal of a undisciplined girl-crazy rebel, Kirk was a serious, determined, almost driven, cadet, and has learned to loosen up and have some fun as he's gotten older.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

This also plays to the stance that, contrary to JJ's portrayal of a undisciplined girl-crazy rebel, Kirk was a serious, determined, almost driven, cadet, and has learned to loosen up and have some fun as he's gotten older.

True, but I understand why they chose to play Kirk the way they did. The girl-crazy rulebreaker is how the general public tends to see Kirk, so anything else would've seemed "wrong" to the casual & new fans the film was trying to attract. And if young Jim Kirk was the positively grim guy we were told about, there wouldn't have been much contrast between his character and Spock. But I suppose they could've just followed the lead of "The Cage", and played Spock much more emotional, thus confusing everybody but hardest of the the hardcore Trek fans.

 

[Christopher]

^Quite right. And at least they offered a plausible explanation why Kirk turned out differently in this history.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Ah yes, the ever popular "Daddy Issues".

 

[Captain Robert April]

And the radically different timeline...

 

[F. King Daniel]

Ah yes, the ever popular "Daddy Issues".

It was the various versions of prime-Kirk that had "Daddy issues". Alt-Kirk had "lack of Daddy issues"

 

[kkozoriz1]

We knew nothing officially about Kirk Prime's father until XI and even then all we found out was his name and that he was on the Kelvin.

A lack of a father IS a Daddy issue.