Star Trek Strange New Worlds, what did you think?

[Janx]

He doesn’t have to be reckless or disobey orders to not be “by the books”. He’s gotta be creative and effective. There are going to be LEGIONS of officers who are “by the book”. None of that is distinctive. Something has to distinguish Kirk other than being as conventional as everyone else.

I think there's a disconnect on what Morrus and you mean by "by the book"

To some folks, it means not running an organization by the standards set forth by HR and the Process and Policy Guideline directives.

I think that's what Morrus means. To which I agree. Kirk ran his ship in a typical standard way.

He didn't solve problems conventionally though. He would seek dialogue when it was expected he'd shoot.

Unconventional tactics/problem solving isn't the same as not being "by the book"

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think that the best way to think about it is when Kirk had a routine problem he'd handle it in a routine way, because that's what a proper Starfleet officer of his rank would do. But he had a whole lot of non-routine problems, and when those occurred he'd use considerable outside-the-box thinking, some of which might border on or actually go outside of possible regulations on the subject, and in that fashion he was viewed as distinctive in ways that I suspect were viewed as more positive than negative, but not lacking in negative. But of course during that period with Starfleet, running into things that the rules didn't seem to really engage with properly was probably much more common than later, given how exploration-oriented that period of Star Trek was.

 

[Hex08]

Just watched the finale back-to-back with Balance Of Terror. One of the best of an excellent series. I was actually surprised by how much smaller Kirk's Enterprise is generally. The bridge, Captain's quarters and the corridors are much tighter in the original.

This is one of my few gripes about SNW, more of a nitpick really. While I like the design of the ship, I think it's too big (I think I mentioned this already upthread), at least it's interior based on the size of the bridge and other rooms we have seen. From the exterior I really like the redesign.

 

[Morrus]

This is one of my few gripes about SNW, more of a nitpick really. While I like the design of the ship, I think it's too big (I think I mentioned this already upthread), at least it's interior based on the size of the bridge and other rooms we have seen. From the exterior I really like the redesign.

That's more of a budget thing, though. Those ships are big. Bigger than a modern aircraft carrier, but with a 10th of the crew. They should have lots of space, and if they'd had more money in the 1960s I'm sure they would have. There's some big spaces in the TOS movies when they had more money.

 

[Hex08]

I fall on the side of Kirk not being a by-the-book kind of Captain. Not that he was a total maverick, but he was willing to do what he thought was right regardless of the rules. When the situation called for it I think he violated orders more frequently than other Captains. Based on this Memory Alpha article about the Prime Directive someone on Reddit put together a chart comparing TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY breaches of the Prime Directive. TOS led with twelve and it only ran for three seasons compared to the other three that ran for seven. I didn't verify the work in the Reddit post but it seems about right to me.

 

[Ryujin]

I fall on the side of Kirk not being a by-the-book kind of Captain. Not that he was a total maverick, but he was willing to do what he thought was right regardless of the rules. When the situation called for it I think he violated orders more frequently than other Captains. Based on this Memory Alpha article about the Prime Directive someone on Reddit put together a chart comparing TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY breaches of the Prime Directive. TOS led with twelve and it only ran for three seasons compared to the other three that ran for seven. I didn't verify the work in the Reddit post but it seems about right to me.

I should apologize for the uncharacteristic text wall.

There's some debate on what the Prime Directive actually entails, and if it meant the same thing right down the line. Originally it was about not interfering with the natural development of cultures, that were presumed to not be spacefaring themselves. Over the years people have folded into that the concept of not interfering with the internal matters of an advanced culture which was part of the Articles of Federation, and not the Prime Directive. The internal politics of member worlds were their own issue.

In TOS Kirk was generally dealing with a situation in which someone else had already messed with a less advanced culture, leaving him to pick up the pieces.

"A Private Little War" - The Klingons were supplying the villagers with firearms, before the Enterprise arrived.

"Patterns of Force" - Cultural observer John Gill started the Nazi movement in order to help in his own survival, by stabilizing the planet's society. The Enterprise crew had to undo the damage.

"The Omega Glory" - Captain Tracey had already mowed down thousands of Hill People with a phaser and messed with the local culture, by effectively making himself a warlord.

"A Taste of Armageddon" - Eminiar 7 was already a spacefaring culture, aware of others, who chose to be insular and kill each other. They went to war with the Enterprise and Kirk fought back.

"Bread and Circuses" - Merchant Marine Captian Merik told the legate(?), Claudius, about The Federation. Another mess for Kirk and company to clean up.

I'll certainly concede that the following were direct violations of the Prime Directive:

"The Feeders of Vaal" - For better or worse, the Feeders chose to worship a machine at some point.

"Return of the Archons" - Once again, for better or worse, a society chose to let a machine rule over them. It got logicked to death.

 

[Hex08]

I should apologize for the uncharacteristic text wall.

There's some debate on what the Prime Directive actually entails, and if it meant the same thing right down the line. Originally it was about not interfering with the natural development of cultures, that were presumed to not be spacefaring themselves. Over the years people have folded into that the concept of not interfering with the internal matters of an advanced culture which was part of the Articles of Federation, and not the Prime Directive. The internal politics of member worlds were their own issue.

In TOS Kirk was generally dealing with a situation in which someone else had already messed with a less advanced culture, leaving him to pick up the pieces.

"A Private Little War" - The Klingons were supplying the villagers with firearms, before the Enterprise arrived.

"Patterns of Force" - Cultural observer John Gill started the Nazi movement in order to help in his own survival, by stabilizing the planet's society. The Enterprise crew had to undo the damage.

"The Omega Glory" - Captain Tracey had already mowed down thousands of Hill People with a phaser and messed with the local culture, by effectively making himself a warlord.

"A Taste of Armageddon" - Eminiar 7 was already a spacefaring culture, aware of others, who chose to be insular and kill each other. They went to war with the Enterprise and Kirk fought back.

"Bread and Circuses" - Merchant Marine Captian Merik told the legate(?), Claudius, about The Federation. Another mess for Kirk and company to clean up.

I'll certainly concede that the following were direct violations of the Prime Directive:

"The Feeders of Vaal" - For better or worse, the Feeders chose to worship a machine at some point.

"Return of the Archons" - Once again, for better or worse, a society chose to let a machine rule over them. It got logicked to death.

As I said in original post I didn't bother to verify the info and now that I have read the Memory Alpha article more closely I think I misinterpreted what the Reddit post was getting at. I don't think it was supporting how often Kirk violated the Prime Directive, I think it was how frequently it was violated in the various series as a whole. As you point out other members of the Federation broke the Prime Directive and sometime Kirk had to step in to fix the problem. That said, sometimes the fix isn't a great one and Kirk had to follow his conscience to come up with a solution, such as "A Private Little War" where he risks escalating the violence by arming one side to match the other (a Vietnam War allegory) which is still problematic. I think Kirk even acknowledges in in log that he is violating orders when he decides to make contact.

The more I think about it, Kirk as a rulebreaker doesn't really become a thing until the movies. When he does break rules in the TV show (Amok Time for example) they are reasons we can easily empathize with and they are not all that common.

 

[Ryujin]

As I said in original post I didn't bother to verify the info and now that I have the Memory Alpha article more closely I think I misinterpreted what the Reddit post was getting at. I don't think it was supporting how often Kirk violated the Prime Directive, I think it was how frequently it was violated in the various series as a whole. As you point out other members of the Federation broke the Prime Directive and sometime Kirk had to step in to fix the problem. That said, sometimes the fix isn't a great one and Kirk had to follow his conscience to come up with a solution, such as "A Private Little War" where he risks escalating the violence by arming one side to match the other (a Vietnam War allegory) which is still problematic. I think Kirk even acknowledges in in log that he is violating orders when he decides to make contact.

The more I think about it, Kirk as a rulebreaker doesn't really become a thing until the movies. When he does break rules in the TV show (Amok Time for example) they are reasons we can easily empathize with and they are not all that common.

The 'fixes' were definitely not optimal, at times. "A Private Little War" feels very much like a direct jab at both the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and every proxy conflict that occurred in the last half of the last century. Kirk ultimately seems to have done what he did for personal reasons, rather than ones of command imperative, however, he did stop short of giving his friend overwhelming power to respond. Keep pace. Don't set out to 'win' the war.

Yes, I would say that Rogue Kirk is a definite product of the movies. The only things we know of him from TOS are that he was rather bookish, in the Academy, and that he's somewhat of an over-achiever.

 

[Stalker0]

I kinda think the reputation of Kirk as some kind of gung-ho maverick is a bit of a retcon created by the Abrams film, where they turned him into Han Solo. He's never struck me as a maverick before. He's always been pretty by the book. When he stole the Enterprise in STIII, that was a big deal.

Well in the very episode we are discussing, the balance of terror..... he directly disobeys a key order to go into the neutral zone. Even after he literally spends time quoting to the crew that, "the rule is absolutely immutable.... we are expendable compared to this order".

So...yeah I can't see him called "by the book"

 

[Umbran]

Do they meet up before, wait till they're all together, then leave together?

Yep. Having a rendezvous point to collect units before going into battle is a pretty standard tactic, even in the real world - if units show up at a battle one by one, they can get picked off individually by the forces present. You want to move in all at once to prevent that.