Amph [NERRRD] Observations, rhetorical questions, comments & 55 Years of Star Trek (General Thread)

Peace and long contracts.

 

Free Enterprise

The size of that would actually go perfect with the little model Excelsior I have laying around somewhere...

Would have been nice for it to exist when me and my friend were kids, then we would'nt have had to make DS9 out of three lincoln logs and a old hubcap we found in the woods behind my house

 

From TOS "Where No Man Has Gone Before"

MITCHELL: If I hadn't aimed that little blonde lab technician at you...
KIRK: You what? You planned that?
MITCHELL: Well, you wanted me to think, didn't you? I outlined her whole campaign for her.
KIRK: I almost married her!

So, Carol Marcus, right? David's age sorta lines up with it. I'm sure Beta novel canon has made that connection.

 

It's mentioned that a comic does depict that technician as Marcus:

https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Gary_Mitchell

In TOS comic: "Starfleet Academy!", Kirk and Mitchell enter the Academy in the same class and are roommates. The same story depicts Carol Marcus as the "blonde lab technician".

Memory Alpha does mention that the writers of Star Trek Chronology have suggested that the technician might have been Marcus.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Carol_Marcus
It has been suggested (such as in the Star Trek Chronology, 1st ed., p. 151 & 2nd ed., p. 268) that a "little blonde lab technician" mentioned in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" may, in fact, have been Carol Marcus. As depicted in the episode, Kirk almost married this female, after an initial encounter between them was arranged by Gary Mitchell (unbeknownst to Kirk) while both males were studying at Starfleet Academy together. Of course, this unnamed character also could have been Janet Wallace, Ruth or some other woman never shown on-screen. Although Michael and Denise Okuda (the writers of the Star Trek Chronology) recognize that the reference might actually be to Carol, they also consider that, given the amount of romantic relationships that Kirk had in his lifetime, it is not surprising that Carol was never heard of (at least not directly) before appearing in Star Trek II. (text commentary, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan The Director's Edition)

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek_Chronology
Despite being written from an in-universe perspective, it also is annotated with some real-world commentaries by the authors.

Also, Carol Marcus's pregnancy is dated quite late in Memory Beta's article on her:

https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Carol_Marcus

It has David be born in 2261 - whereas her first relationship with Kirk as the "blonde technician" was in 2250.

Starfleet Academy!

Memory Alpha also has David be born in 2261.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/David_Marcus

 

Other odd unprovable theory about Where No Man Has Gone Before. James R. Kirk tombstone. Maybe someone mistyped /finger slipped on a keyboard as R&T are right beside each other and then the prop department got "R" instead of "T". Not sure why Gary would put it as R, I know Q-Squared novel went with it was an alt-timeline and Gary's powers were Q. (who at that point had been blown up by Trelane).

Also fun theory I read as Q-Squared basically says that Trelane is Q's son, although set earlier in the timeline when later Q admits to Janeway that the Q don't reproduce so not sure how to work it (unless y'know Q and time travel). But putting Q-Squared aside, maybe Trelane is Q2, Q's son at the end of Voyager. Q2 wants an Enterprise of his own to play with just like his dad, goes back in time and puts up a minimal facade to "preserve" the timeline of Trelane, the Squire of Gothos, and torments and bothers Kirk and Co. glowy space projections is Q and his mate, keeping up not revealing themselves as Q to the Federation yet.

 

After making my way through season 2 of TNG and largely enjoying the experience, especially with the recent and absolutely exceptional "Q Who," I just finished the truly godawful "Up The Long Ladder," which was offensive in five or six different ways. The Enterprise finds a colony of Irish stereotypes from the 22nd century who've regressed to 17th/18th-century living standards, then locates their sister colony of five bland clones, and saves both through the miracle of polygamy? Sure. I know this is considered up there with the clip show episode and the Scottish ghost sex episode as one of the worst of TNG, and the series as a whole from what I've heard, and I can absolutely see why. It was terrible in ways I can't even begin to articulate.

But here's the thing though... I still got to spend time with Picard, Riker, Deanna Troi, Worf, Data, and everyone else on the Enterprise, and that's exactly how I felt about the worst episodes of TOS. That, in and of itself, made it worthwhile, because I've genuinely grown to love these characters. Spending time with them is like spending time with friends; even when the party sucks, the company is great.

To go on a further tangent, I've had Star Trek on the brain a lot lately. I grew up a die hard Star Wars fan, and just never had much interest in Star Trek apart from the Kelvin timeline films, because they were more along the lines of the high octane space action-adventure I was accustomed to and craved. This was in spite of people around me loving it. My grandfather was 17 when TOS premiered, and he's watched every episode of that show about a hundred times, but it never took when I was a kid. An ex of mine from years back was obsessed with Trek, but I always resisted her efforts to get me into it. I just didn't care, and it didn't click. It's honestly not until two or three years ago that I really felt pulled towards it, and I've been giving some thought as to why.

I think to some degree, while Star Wars is something I fell in love with as a kid and that still resonates with and speaks to the kid in me, Star Trek is something I didn't learn to appreciate until I became an adult, and it genuinely resonates with the person I am today in a way that I didn't anticipate. It's messy. It's more interested in canon than continuity, and as a result it's often inconsistent and contradictory. It's mind-numbingly stupid at least as often as it's smart and intellectual. But it tries; it tries to make you think, to challenge your perspectives, to be something more thoughtful than the frequently absurd science fiction entertainment it can easily pass for on the surface. When it succeeds, it can be breathtakingly brilliant, stimulating, exciting, and moving. And beneath even the most ridiculous, half-baked stories you might find in any given clunker of an episode, there is always, always the stubborn belief that humanity is destined to be more than what it is, that we have it within ourselves to overcome our worst natures and be better, to work together to build a brighter, kinder future, and to challenge anyone who would stand in the way of that or threaten to drag us back down. That's something I need right now. That's something, I think, we'll always need. That's what makes Star Trek timeless, and I only regret it's taken me so long to realize that when I could have loved this series my whole life.

 

Just got to the infamous clip show episode. "Shades of Grey" was just as insipid as I've heard it was, and it's truly tragic that Riker's memories are apparently limited to the two seasons of TV we've known him for. Onto season 3, which it seems is when the show is supposed to really hit its stride.

 

Q and the Borg return, plus Season 3 has the first episode in the Worf vs Duras/Klingon Civil War arc that will last until the beginning of Season 5.

 

Yeah, a lot of the great shining moments in TNG and in a couple of cases all of Star Trek happen between seasons 3 and 5 in TNG.

@PCCViking I’d argue that TNG season 3 sets up Worf’s entire character arc all the way to the end of DS9.

 

Won't argue there.

 

Rewatched DS9's Past Tense last night, way too relevant. Great line when Bashir and Sisko time travel back to the @#$-show year of 2024. "21st Century history isn't my best subject. Too depressing."

Any Ocean Floor mining or European Neo-Trotskys or Credit chips we need to keep an eye out for?

May watch Futures End for a time travel to "modern times" riff. So what would be a time travel Star Trek 20th/21st Century playlist that ends with First Contact? Like off the top of my head: City on the Edge of Forever, Little Green Men, Assignment Earth, Voyage Home, Futures End, Carpenter Street, Past Tense and First Contact.

 

Woah! I am personal frand to the person who made this video.

 

Cool! I like this one even better:

 

You missed Tomorrow is Yesterday.

And there's Carbon Creek and 11:59 if you throw in 20th/21st Century stories without time travel.

 

Hopefully, Trump doesn't turn out like Colonel Green who was involved with WWIII during the Trek history.

 

^ Solid list. Totally forgot about Time's Arrow as well. I was also thinking the Q trial scenes of Encounter at Farpoint and All Good Things (but moreso EaF) are really huge for adding context to the WWIII pre-First Contact Earth. Although there's a hellova lot of stuff in Encounter at Farpoint that isn't based around that and technically it's all just a Q projection anyway.

 

I see your Hawaii 5-0: The Original Series and I raise you MacGyver: The Next Generation

Yeah, I've always assumed it's Carol; granted, I doubt that was TWOK's intention and I know it was'nt the shows, but it fits perfectly as a theory and nothing in canon contradicts it (that I can think of, at least).

Maybe Gary was just being a dick? Like maybe Finnigan used to call Kirk "Jimbaby Riberius Jerk" or something and it pissed him off so Gary decided to throw that in their.

That or he's actualy "James Richard/Ryan/Robert* Tiberius Kirk" or something and at some point after Were No Man Has Gone Before Kirk started using his second middle name rather then his first.

*Richard Robau was both Goerge and Winona's commanding officer, after all - perhaps he was also a close friend of them and they threw that in to honor him? So it would be James (after Winona's), Robert (after Robau) and Tiberius (after Goerge's father)

That's been my headcanon for a while now; with Q2 taking place (from Q's perspective) almost right after the Squire of Gothos and Trelane/Junior apparently needing some form of technology to aid harnessing/using his powers being becuase he's still young (for a Q, that is).

Speaking as an Irish-American, I cannot, in good conscious, call that episode stereotypical (though I would dearly love to)

In fact, I'd dare say the lack of potato-based food (like what I'm eating right now!), Catholicism and celtic music makes it innaccurate, if anything else...

You really should say things like that on a STAR WARS forum, Pym...

@PCCViking I’d argue that TNG season 3 sets up Worf’s entire character arc all the way to the end of DS9.[/QUOTE]

I'd agree; I alwasy included the Klingon politics DS9 episodes when I go through my "Worf plays the Game of Thrones marathon." (starting with Heart of Glory and ending on Tacking Into the Wind).

But is he your best "frand?"

My headcanon is that Trump was also elected* in the Trekverse (and then reelected) and that his politics are behind the Santuary Disticts and, indirectly, World War III due to his stance on China and incapable forign policies allowing for the rise of the Eastern Coalition (whic is led by Lee Kuan and includes China, North Korea and Iran). He's forced out of office following the Bell Riots and his followers (including a young Colonel Green, who I like to imagine was a alt-right militia leader rather then an actual colonel) subsqently lose power.

*it's the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics (the existence of which in the Trekverse accounts for both Rain Robinson's statements in Future's End and references to the USSR/use of Soviet placenames in works set later), not Russia, who tampered with the 2016 election.