From the opening of TUC: Right, several things have been bugging me about this log lately. Firstly, the first line can be interpreted two ways. i) Its taken them 3 years to complete their first assignment or ii) They have done nothing for 3 years and finally have been given something to do. What? Excelsior - the most advanced Starship in the Fleet has done nothing for 3 years? Kirk went halfway round the galaxy and back in 3 years and the Excelsior is doing science stuff? I know this line is to tell us [the audience] that time has passed, but how do you interpret that line onscreen? Three years hanging around for something to do is bad enough, but three years cataloging Gaseous Anomalies???? Where are the green skinned alien women? Where are the fist fights on a rocky planet? And then!!! She is heading home under Full impulse power? I tell yer, it must be exciting on the Excelsior. It is K-K-K krazee.... Three years doing science stuff and then flying home at full impulse!!! Discuss.
Well, the latter thing makes sense at least. The ship had apparently completed her mission mere seconds before Sulu made that log - notice Valtane only coming to tell his captain that the survey is complete after Sulu concludes the log entry. In all likelihood, the ship was still deep within some star system and was about to do a by-the-book departure where she has to clear the nearby gravity wells before engaging warp. The former could mean a couple of other things besides the two you mentioned. For example, possibly it has indeed taken them three years to get the gaseous anomaly survey done - largely because it kept being interrupted by galactic emergencies, pitched battles with Klingons, and that alien that stole Rand's brain and never gave it back. And probably Sulu has been doing a lot of other stuff, too, but the first thing he has managed to actually complete was the anomaly study. He was never any good at finishing things or sticking to an interest in TOS, either... Timo Saloniemi
The Enterprise had a five-year mission, but returned to Earth several times. Perhaps Sulu's mission was an eighteen-month journey out (and eighteen-month return) mission traversing the Beta Quadrant - that's a mighty large section of space - much of it unexplored and/or mapped. Mapping the gaseous anomalies would seem to be a crucial part of mapping, and there may have been numerous first contacts, strange new worlds, and incursions with Klingons, in that time. We know from "Flashback" that Sulu developed a comradeship with Kang at some time in the early part of his captaincy. Why assume it was three years of boredom?
That's how I always saw it. Sort of the same deal they tried to get Riker to take, when he was offered the Aries (In The Icarus Factor) You know "Hey, So you want to be a captain? Here, take this ship, & go out to the ass end of space & find out some stuff, & when you're done, you get a chip in the big game"
Sulu's revised Log: Thanks to our outstanding ship, Excelsior, we have completed our three year mission in a mere three days. Have spent the last 1077 days tooling around the universe looking for green wenches. Lost track of time on that last planet and find ourselves running behind schedule. Therefore, we are now heading home under full impluse power.
Huh? What's "the big game"? Squabbling with Romulans and klingons about the borders? Surely "the big game" is exploration, which is precisely what Sulu's ship was doing.
I really don't know why someone would think Sulu's been doing nothing for three years. He states pretty clearly what he's been doing for the last three years: cataloguing gaseous anamolies in the Beta Quadrant. Kirk states at the beginning of every episode what he's doing for his five years out there: exploring strange new worlds. Now, did Kirk spend every episode on a new world? Not at all; a good chunk of Star Trek has the Enterprise warping around in Federation space. And even when he got to those worlds, were they all boring hunks of rock? By no means. Similarly, there's no reason to assume that all Sulu did was check out a bunch of boring gas clouds. If there were a three year television show depicting Sulu's three-year mission, I bet we'd see a lot of random space probes, sojourns into Federation space, and the odd sentient gaseous anomaly (which threatens all life as we know it).
Who's to say Excelsior is the most advanced starship? She was the prototype. Therefore, the oldest of her class. She probably had her nuts and bolts shaken up pretty badly with all the testing before sending her out as a full-fledged NCC. They probably wouldn't have given the most advanced ship to a new captain. By this time, there are probably a bunch of newer ships, and Excelsior is a tired, old lady.
...Of course, sending the biggest and baddest vessel of Starfleet to "chart gaseous anomalies" in the vicinity of the Klingon border for three years would send the Klingon High Council a very clear message. No doubt Sulu would get the chance to exchange pleasantries and photon torpedoes with Kang a couple of times on the course of such a mission. Timo Saloniemi
Ok, my tongue was in my cheek a bit. Its still a very languid opening, which I suppose is the point given whats about to happen. Its mainly the wording that got me going. A 3 year mission to catalogue gaseous anomalies* doesnt sound very interesting. I wonder how often Sulu had to show alien women "what love is"... As I stated in my original post, the three years bit was probably added to indicate time had passed. I think we need a "TONGUE IN CHEEK" smiley. *this thread is a spelling nightmare...
I dont know fights with the Klingons, hot alien women, sounds good to me, and im sure other stuff happend as well, making contact with new alien spieces on the far side of beta quadrant.
This wasn't the weirdest part. At the beginning of the conference near the start of the movie McCoy asks, 'If where all here where's Sulu?' and Kirk replies, 'On assignment'. Sulu's been gone for THREE YEARS and McCoy didn't even notice?? Charlie
I figured that McCoy thought Sulu would be pulled off of his assignment for a meeting of such importance.
I like some of the answers here. Kirk's 5-year mission was to "explore strange new worlds and to seek out new life and new civilizations" but he ran into many mishaps along the way. Sulu's was a 3 year mission or "assignment" to "catalogue gaseous anamolies in the Beta Quadrant." I'm sure he ran into many exciting mishaps along the way, too. As for the piddling along home at "full impulse," I daresay that ST III made a BIG to-do about it having the new transwarp drive. Maybe "impulse" power on the Excelsior is a lot faster than on the Enterprise. In TNG's "Conspiracy" (i believe) Geordi confirmed an order of travelling at warp 6 as being "full impulse." Just throwing out ideas to consider.
I'm just wondering if I missed something. People are writing about how this 3 year mission is why Sulu knows Kang. But the way Kang congratulated Sulu in the Voyager episode, I got the impression that Kang hadn't known that Hikaru had been promoted until then. Thoughts or comments?