posted
The record cards would make sense if we assume they were indeed old ones, from the last time these two were psi-tested (I trust this is not a regularly repeated test, not in the pre-TOS, telepaths-are-a-novelty environment). We have to also assume that early TOS and pre-TOS stardates are cyclic, though, for those to make sense. AND we have to ignore the fact that the CURRENT ranks of these people are given on these OLD cards.
On that last point, it only makes sense to ignore the said ranks. How could Mitchell be a Lt.Cmdr at the age of 23?
posted
Actually, what records even today ask for "age" specifically, and not "date of birth"?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Good point. But perhaps the development of psi abilities is strongly correlated to age, so whenever a licensed psi tester comes to town, the first thing he asks is the age of the testee. The testee will probably not be interviewed again within his lifetime on this subject (unless he's super-gifted and in that case probably carted away to a secret S31 laboratory), so date of birth is not relevant.
capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
The James R. Kirk issue was addressed rather hilariously in Michael Jan Friedman's 'My Borther's Keeper' novels.. Mitchall made a crack about Kirk not being able to play racquetball, and Kirk stated that racquetball was his middle name... Mitchell was referencing an old personal joke. The rest of the novel sucked though
-------------------- "Are you worried that your thoughts are not quite.. clear?"
Registered: Sep 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
Yeah. Each of the three novels gave a different meaning to the middle initial R, which I thought was kinda cute. It was also rather commendable how Friedman was forced to give us a recap of the events of "Where No Man.." in the beginning of each of the three books, and managed to do it so differently each time.
And the plotlines as such were relatively promising - the classic explanation to the Klingon forehead thing and all. It's just that Friedman is so darn uninteresting. He'd water down even ST2 if given the chance to write the novelization...
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: ST 1 "Where No Man Has Gone Before" Stardate 1312.4-1313.8 CE 2196-2396
[...]
ST 1+93 days "The Corbomite Manuver" Stardate 1512.2 (3) CE 2196-2396
Just a suggestion: might it be easier to call "Where No Man Has Gone Before" ST 0 as opposed to ST 1? It would make calculations between dates much easier, if I'm not mistaken.
posted
Yes, I would think so. This seems to be based on the BC/AD scale, which is already shunned scientifically because of the problems it causes. I would call WNMHGB the beginning of "ST 0", the year after it "ST 1", and the year before it "ST -1".
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
Observations: The record cards, with name, age, physical description, etc., are useless for dating purposes. Why? Look at the first line. "Personnel Medical Record-Starship ?". Without the name of this starship, we can't even be certain that these records were produced on the USS Enterprise NCC-1701. For all we know, they may been produced on another starship.
They are good at giving general data.
*Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's father is Gerald Dehner. She lived on street "1489" in a city called Delman, in a state named Newst(). She was born on 1087.70. *Lt. Cmdr. Gary Mitchell lived on street "8148" in a city called Eldman, in the same state as Dehner. He was born on stardate 1089.50.
Additional facts can be gleaned from the ESP files.
*Dr. Elizabeth Dehner. Aside from the notes given on her family's history of ESP, with the earliest records coming from ~60 years ago, and Dr. Dehner's skills with ESP, we learned a little about her career. She studied at the College of Medical Sciences of the Tri-Planetary Academy. At this Academy, she wrote a thesis on ESP in aliens which was due to be published. For her work at this institution, Dr. Dehner was transferred to the Aldebaran Colony.
*Lt. Cmdr. Mitchell. His family's connections are deeper than Dehner's with the earliest records of ESP abilites dating back to ~120 years. As an officer on assigment to Deneb IV, he participated in telepathetic communication with the natives. His comprehension of their thoughts was 80 or greater percent.
This last fact helps to date the incident referred to in dialogue. Kirk was with Mitchell at one of these communications. In a later dialogue, Dehner states that Mitchell served with Spock for years. We know that prior to this episode, Pike was captain of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 before his promotion. So, at least two years prior to the episode, Mitchell had served with Kirk aboard his first command. Along with visiting Deneb IV, the two visited Dimorus.
Now, as for the fifteen year statement, Dehner said that Kirk and Mitchell became friends when Mitchell joined the service. When Mitchell joined the service, Kirk was a Lt. From later episodes, we know that Kirk became a lt. in 2255. So, for at least five years, possibly more, both men were not friends. They knew each other as acquitances.
Now, the tombstone. I feel that, as with the record cards, until we have a clearer understanding of the material, we shouldn't venture a guess as to what is said or not said.
Oh, to add an additional date. I did research on Spinoza. The work seen in the episode, "Ethics", was published in 1688.
Registered: Sep 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Minor nitpicking on that "not friends" theme:
It definitely sounds as if "Watch out for Lt. Kirk" would be a case of Gary first hearing of Jim. That is, this is the "15 years ago" incident, not the "we became friends" incident. Which of course creates some problems - in 2255, it's about five years too late in case we want to have our "WNMGHB" in 2265 (which is more or less canonical now, if the five-year mission ended in 2270).
But we could say that an ignorant classmate told Gary to "watch out for Lt. Kirk" even when Gary was on first-name basis with the said Lieutenant already, and had been for years. The phrasing of that warning would stay fresh in Gary's mind, due to its humorous inappropriateness.
Does "joining the service" mean enrolling for SF Academy, or graduating? The former would jibe much better with the 15-year reference: if Gary enrolled in 2249/2250, Okudaic/canon dates would hold. But probably Gary joined after Kirk did - or else we have to go back to Square One in the eternal fight against making Kirk a Lt. before graduation...
So 2251 sounds like the proper date for Gary's entry. Jim would have graduated in 2254 and made Lt. rank by 2255 (having served as Ensign aboard the Republic in between, "several years" after befriending Finney, and still performing some sort of Academy-related role aboard so that the statement about being under Garrovick "from the day I left the Academy" would hold true).
Gary would be friends with Jim, having first met him back when Jim was a second-year student, a "stack of books with legs". In 2255, Gary would take a final-year class in whatever his old buddy Jim was teaching, and a classmate would utter this completely improper warning about "Lt. Kirk".
That would make the friendship of the two thirteen years old by 2264, not fifteen, but that's still an acceptable rounding. And if Gary enrolled at 18, if would make him 31 in "WNMHGB", as stated earlier; a very sensible figure considering the actor's appearance and the character's rank and position.
As for the references to 23 and 21 years of age in the cards: As PsyLiam says, an entry for "age" is atypical for such forms or questionnaires. So perhaps Gary had an Adjusted Gravity Endurance of 23 points, and Liz had 21? Of course, since the two share a birthplace, they could also share a non-Earth method of counting the age. Perhaps Newst... has years that are 1.5 times the length of Earth years?
Whuzzap with their heights, BTW? Even for a metric-oriented guy, 5'7" sounds excessively low for Dehner. And I didn't see the heels that would make her the same approximate height as Mitchell in the many shots where they stand side by side. (Now that's a first, a woman without high or even medium heels on a starship bridge! Shatner wore higher heels than Kellerman there - he was probably two inches shorter than most of the cast, and a goodly three inches the inferior of Nimoy. See here.)
But somebody has clearly been smudging the numbers on those cards... Liz's seems to have read either 5'6", 5'8" or 5'9" originally.
posted
A history of Kirk (using Okuda's dates for convenience)...
2233: Kirk is born.
34 years before "The Deadly Years."
2250: Kirk meets Gary Mitchell, enters Starfleet Academy, and visits Axanar.
He met Mitchell 15 years before "Where No Man Has Gone Before," entered the Academy at 17 according to the writer's guide, and visited Axanar as a "new fledged cadet" according to "Whom God's Destroy."
c. 2250-54: Kirk takes a class under Ben Finney.
This, from "Court Martial," could have been any time during his Academy days.
2254: Kirk graduates from Starfleet Academy. He is assigned to the USS Republic under the command of Captain Garrovick. While aboard, Kirk logs a mistake by Finney. He is promoted to lieutenant and commands his first landing part at Neural.
He served on the Republic as an ensign, "some years" after taking a class under Finney, and his first commanding officer was Garrovick. The logical conclusion is that Garrovick commanded the Republic at the time and this was Kirk's first post-graduation assignment. He was a lieutenant at Neural, 13 years before "A Private Little War."
c. 2255-2256: The Republic returns to port, and Garrovick assumes command of the USS Farragut. He takes some of his staff with him, including Lieutenant Kirk. During a refitting break between assignments, Kirk teaches a class at the Academy. One of his students is Gary Mitchell.
Exactly when all this happens is anyone's guess. Since Kirk was a lieutenant when Mitchell entered the Academy, it has to be after the Republic incident from "Court Martial." That it was also after the Neural landing party accommodates a return to Earth as well as a transfer to the Farragut.
2257: Lieutenant Kirk makes a mistake with the vampire-cloud creature, killing half the Farragut's crew.
11 years before "Obsession."
c. 2258-2264: Kirk rises through the ranks, ultiamtely commanding a destroyer.
His first command, the "equivalent" of a destroyer, was described in The Making of Star Trek.
2264: Kirk assumes command of the USS Enterprise.
4 years before the time of The Making of Star Trek, between the second and third seasons of the original series. This is probably off by a bit, especially since Okuda's dates ignore the three-year gap between "Errand of Mercy" and "Day of the Dove" as well as the only reliable reference relative to the stable dates of The Next Generation, "Sarek."
posted
Listen, if I had to process records using TOS stardates all day, I'd politely ask for the "age" to be included as well....
I don't think those people can tell time from stardates any better than we can. It's a fact that they vary considerably in rate and direction, but it still stands to reason that a particular stardate will refer to a particular point in time, even though stardate 1089.4 might be today, 1122.3 might be tomorrow, and 1084.4 might be the next day. If they wanted to know precisely when, they'd ask the computer to decode the stardate with respect to the characters' relative location. I somehow doubt the cyclic theory, since we really haven't seen enough pre-TOS stardates to justify it, and because nobody's ever asked for a cycle to be specified.
Stardates would only be perfectly consistent and reasonable with respect to some reference frame we'll never visit on the show, such as a remote time base enclosed inside a subspace field or something. This timebase might have changed location or subspace field intensity a couple of times to even out the variations somewhat. By the time of the TNG era, stardates would be more regular, but not quite.
Registered: Sep 2001
| IP: Logged
Mudd's Women BST 3-2 Ben Childress, Herm Gossett and Benton posted to Rigel XII (1) ST 0+7 days (2) "Mudd's Women" Stardate 1329.1 (3)
1.) Ruth reports that the miners have been on the planet for "almost three years." 2.) Assuming 1 stardate equals 11.25 hours. It is extremely unlikely this took place just a week after the second pilot. 3.) The first stardate given in this episode is 1329.8, but a later log entry is listed as 1329.1, and the rest of the dates given proceed from that, including 1329.2 shortly after, and 1330.1 near the middle of the show. It is possible, one supposes, that Kirk simply misspoke and meant 1328.8 at the beginning. At any rate, 1329.1 is the earliest date given in the episode.
The Enemy Within ST 0+168 days (1) "The Enemy Within" Stardate 1672.1
1.) As per scale given in "Corbomite."
The Man Trap BST 12 McCoy and Nancy knew each other at this time. BST 10 McCoy and the future Nancy Crater end their relationship. BST 5-4 Craters arrive at M-113 BST 1 Nancy Crater killed. (1) ST 0+94 days (2) "The Man Trap" Stardate 1513.1
1.) Professor Crater said that Nancy had died one year before, "or was it two?" Spock's search turned up reports of a drop in shipments of artifacts and other scientific findings over the previous year. 2.) Again, the Corbomite scale. This could not have happened the day after "Mudd's Women." For one thing, the Enterprise model is different.
The Naked Time ST 0+180 days Enterprise is thrown back to this date following a successful cold restart of the warp drive. ST 0+183 days (1) "The Naked Time" Stardate 1704.2
1.) Corbomite scale.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Newly updated! And stuff! This time we make the wildly unsupportable claim that "The Cage" occured two weeks before "Where No Man Has Gone Before"! Available as a .txt file you can download to your very own computer! Only this lacks all the fancy formatting tricks I use to keep conjectures separate! Totally download it!
Of course, since the two share a birthplace, they could also share a non-Earth method of counting the age. Perhaps Newst... has years that are 1.5 times the length of Earth years?
Printer-friendly view of this topic
