Mine too.
What is your personal head canon?
- Thread starter AmandaSmith
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My head canon disagrees. Too much mental gyrations are needed to put Mitchell over Spock, especially when you plan to kill off the guest star of the week during the shows pilot which is to sell the cast to the network. The simple answer is that Spock is the first officer. Memory Alpha agrees (for what's that worth):
That’s entirely true. Then again, The Undiscovered Country showed high-level officers nevertheless sleeping in bunks. I hated that (and it flies in the face of seeing junior officers having personal quarters in series set both before and after that), but there it is.
Honestly, there's enough vagueness for both scenarios to be true.
^True, and many explanations to resolve such inconsistencies are possible.
For example, perhaps, it's not lack of space, but part of a policy to ensure people do not get too attached to their comforts. For all we know, even the captain of the ship or admirals may be required to 'bunk' a few nights every once in a while.
For example, perhaps, it's not lack of space, but part of a policy to ensure people do not get too attached to their comforts. For all we know, even the captain of the ship or admirals may be required to 'bunk' a few nights every once in a while.
But the Cerritos is around the same size as an Ambassador-class or Sovereign-class. It has LOADS of room unless its crew is literally several thousand people.
I for one do not think that ensigns on a few ships in a space navy having to bunk in a common area for a couple of years after graduation means that things aren't "better" in the future. I mean, hell, they all get quarters as soon as they're promoted to lieutenant j.g. It's not like they established that there are homeless people on Earth or something.
What are its specifications?
The California-class is 535m long. It's much bigger than most people seem to think it is. The saucer is slightly larger than that of an Ambassador-class, and significantly bigger than the saucer of a Sovereign-class. I don't have perfect volumetric information for the California yet but even at its smallest possible size it's more than three times the volume of an Intrepid, and at least 50% larger than an Akira.
I always took it that Mitchell was XO. I don't see any mental gyrations in reaching such a conclusion.
It was only when I read comments on here that I saw where Spock could have been XO.
I think it’s super easy to make the assumption that Spock is the XO given he would hold that position for most of the following 30+ years. Not to mention the fact he was already on the ship and likely came highly recommended by Pike.
but it’s just as easy to think that Kirk, on his first major command would bring over his best friend to help run the ship. Someone he trusts without question.
but it’s just as easy to think that Kirk, on his first major command would bring over his best friend to help run the ship. Someone he trusts without question.
I dont recall that. I remember seeing Captains Kirk, Sulu and Spock's beds. Were those bunks?
The episode is definitely vague about which one is the first officer. On the one hand, Spock is wearing a yellow command shirt, which implies that he's somewhere in the command structure. At the very least, he seems to assume the duties of first officer after Mitchell is incapacitated. So he's at least third in command at the time of WNMHGB. And it's very likely he would've earned the position by the time Kirk took over. But he doesn't seem to do much outside of his science officer duties early on.
On the other hand, Kirk and Mitchell are very close. He casually addresses Kirk as "Jim" in front of Spock in the turbolift on the way to the bridge at the beginning of the episode, which doesn't seem likely if Mitchell wasn't second in command. It's Mitchell who opens the intercraft for Kirk to address the entire ship and it's Mitchell who tells Kirk that all the department heads are on the bridge. Those certainly seem like first officer duties to me. And Dr. Dehner says (repeating information from Gary) that Kirk asked for Mitchell on his first command. It seems that Kirk most likely would've requested Mitchell as first officer, and we know that Number One also doubled as first and helm officer.
But the episode never definitively says what Mitchell's position is one way or the other, as the script emphasizes Gary's long friendship with Kirk over his exact title. And we only have about five minutes of footage of the normal operations of the Enterprise to go on before Mitchell is altered by the Great Barrier. So it's interesting to contemplate.
Personally, I think that Mitchell was the first officer for Kirk's first few months on the ship. Kirk would more likely pick someone he was close with, and I like the idea of Spock inheriting Mitchell's position after his death, eventually becoming Kirk's new best friend as well.
(BTW, my personal headcanon is that Mitchell was actually assigned to the Enterprise before Kirk took command. That's how he knew Spock "for years" by the time of WNMHGB. The first command that Kirk requested Mitchell for was the cruiser he commanded before the Enterprise, but Mitchell was unavailable for that position. But as luck would have it, Kirk took command of the Enterprise himself a couple of years later. So at the time of WNMHGB, Mitchell actually knew Mr. Spock at bit better than Kirk did at that point.)
There were definitely people sleeping in bunk beds on the Excelsior (VOY: Flashback) during the events of TUC.
I always thought they were “lower decks” types, not senior officers. Tuvok was an ensign at the time, if I recall correctly.
Correct on all counts.
They were due on Tuesday
I actually forget now whether it was ST6 itself or the Voyager episode that flashed back to it, but we definitely saw non-captain officers in bunks in a barracks room. (Kirk, Sulu and Spock were all shown as having their own private quarters.)
The scene with Tuvok making his Vulcan tea as Commander Rand comes in to hand him the subspace message from his father? Isn't that a joint junior officers' cabin with bunk bedding?
I remember thinking that, in The Undiscovered Country, Spock's and Kirk's quarters look a lot smaller on the Enterprise-A than they did on the original Enterprise during both The Motion Picture and Wrath of Khan.
Kirk has a small desk with some mementos on it next to a bed, and it's so small that Valeris can hang out by the door to eavesdrop and record him, where in the earlier movies his cabin had an office area and was a pretty decent size.
Maybe the senior crew have smaller quarters because the ship is going through some kind of internal reconfiguration? Pushing everyone out of those quarters while the work went on.
We know the class went from 200 to 400 crew at some point in the past. Maybe we were seeing some kind of expansion or contraction at play.
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