Who Commanded Starbase 11?
- Thread starter Captain Clark Terrell
- Start date
I think so, too.
Mendez also seemed amused at Kirk's interactions with Piper, the red-uniformed officer who investigated the mysterious transmission that drew the Enterprise to the starbase, which suggests that he was familiar with Kirk's track-record with women. Perhaps Mendez had been Kirk's CO at an earlier point in their respective careers (as we know little of Kirk's service record between the Farragut and the Enterprise). In fact, it's entirely within the realm of possibilities that Mendez was the first officer who commended Kirk for his "uncommon bravery" in defending Captain Garrovick from the dikironium cloud creature seen in "Obsession."
--Sran
It might suffice for him to have been one of the Constitution skippers, or "starship captains", who seemed an exclusive and inbred community in "Court Martial"...
Then again, Stone used to be part of that clique, too, and there was no love lost between him and Kirk, not even before the accusations began to fly. But perhaps the community had its internal divides, and Stone was on the wrong side (and therefore humiliatingly retreated to the redshirt realm).
In any case, Jim's relationship with Jose here is similar to that with Bob Wesley later on, and to a degree with Matt Decker as well. Kirk knows all the goldshirt Commodores pretty well, and they know him, but the redshirts are more distant. Is it just the shirt color that breeds formality?
Timo Saloniemi
Then again, Stone used to be part of that clique, too, and there was no love lost between him and Kirk, not even before the accusations began to fly. But perhaps the community had its internal divides, and Stone was on the wrong side (and therefore humiliatingly retreated to the redshirt realm).
In any case, Jim's relationship with Jose here is similar to that with Bob Wesley later on, and to a degree with Matt Decker as well. Kirk knows all the goldshirt Commodores pretty well, and they know him, but the redshirts are more distant. Is it just the shirt color that breeds formality?
Timo Saloniemi
Experimental psychologists have found that if you take a group of test subjects and give half of them one color t-shirt, and the other half get the other color, sprinkled randomly about the room, the population will tend to self-segregate by shirt color. It's not an immutable law, but there is such a tendency.
I wonder if the tunic scheme on TOS would impact social behavior aboard an actual ship. The psychological effect could keep valuable friendships from forming. It could even negatively impact work by distancing people who should be communicating useful information. "He's not one of my guys; let him learn it from a book."
Aircraft carrier flight crews wear team colors. I haven't heard of any trouble. But maybe you have to be in that world to know about it.
^Well, social behavior would be impacted by people's day-to-day responsibilities to certain extent. Someone working in the security division is going to spend most of him with other security officers, perhaps occasionally interacting with members of the operations and engineering teams. He probably won't see much of the medical staff unless he's posted in or around sickbay, and he'd have no reason to talk to the science officers unless he were accompanying them on a landing party.
Getting back to Mendez/Stone, I wonder if Stone's red shirt was significant for something like Internal Affairs or Starfleet Security. He may have commanded the starbase, but perhaps he had other responsibilities. That might explain why Kirk was suspicious of him (even before being charged), as Kirk would no doubt have viewed someone like Stone as being outside the circle (whereas Mendez was clearly in the circle, having known both Kirk and Pike for several years, presumably) and therefore less deserving of his trust than the senior officers with whom he identified.
--Sran
Getting back to Mendez/Stone, I wonder if Stone's red shirt was significant for something like Internal Affairs or Starfleet Security. He may have commanded the starbase, but perhaps he had other responsibilities. That might explain why Kirk was suspicious of him (even before being charged), as Kirk would no doubt have viewed someone like Stone as being outside the circle (whereas Mendez was clearly in the circle, having known both Kirk and Pike for several years, presumably) and therefore less deserving of his trust than the senior officers with whom he identified.
--Sran
It depends on which order you watch 'em but I'd agree with the earlier statements that one officer simply replaced the other. And the Pike issue was kept quiet from everyone, so if Pike was on SB11 in Court Martial (if you watch the shows in production order) then it was considered not Kirk's business to know!
JB
JB
