So while it looks like he had some crazy adventures and disregarded Starfleet at every turn, that’s a lie.
Most of the time, he spent every other episode calling back, following the strictest of laws, going through proper motions and channels. Every other action was court-martialed and brought to trial. He was, for the most part, a dedicated captain following Starfleet’s rules.
Just because he is now the reason for about two dozen more rules, doesn’t make him the crazy madman adventurer we see him as. Of course he differed from his orders, at times. But those are the most excusable times, and even then, after disobeying, he laid himself up for proper discipline. He knew he’d done wrong in the eyes of his superiors, but his conscience wouldn’t have let him do any different.
Kirk was a rule follower and a rule maker. And only on special circumstances, a rule breaker.
This is as canonical as it gets: Kirk even says as much about himself when talking about his time as a cadet. Even with the Kobayashi Maru, supposedly his “defining” moment of “coolness” and rebellion, Kirk cheats because of how upset he is about the possibility of making a non-perfect grade. Like: he would only violate the rules to protect his GPA 😐
And rather than breaking into the grading system and changing his grade(which would be easier), or trying to finagle extra work/easier grading to make up for it(which would also be easier since everyone, canonically, thinks he’s a hotty), he changes the test so a perfect conclusion is no longer impossible, then achieves that still very difficult, but possible, solution. That’s a very lawful way to “cheat”(and, coincidentally, one that makes it obvious that he cheated since the instructors know the test was designed to be unbeatable. That he wasn’t drummed out for it shows how much Starfleet admires quick-thinking and pluck, so long as it doesn’t go too far).
I think people miss this because:
Movie Kirk is an almost totally different character from TV Kirk, and anyone born after the original run but before the prevalence of torrent sites(which is most fans these days) met Movie Kirk first. and
They don’t get how deeply Picard is a foil for Kirk.
I mean, they understand in a surface sense, in that Kirk is popularly seen as a “cowboy” and Picard is seen as a managerial diplomat, but it’s far deeper and more literary than that.
Kirk’s childhood is marred by horror. When he was 13 he was already off-world and lived through a planetary famine… and the eugenicist massacre the colony’s governor implemented to “save” it. These experiences had a huge impact on him and his morality, and shaped the grim, serious, humorless, friendless and by-the-books student he was in the academy.
His career after the academy, and particularly his time as Captain, taught him how to be himself; how to come out of the shell of duty he protected himself from others with, and the dark impulses he realized were within all humans, after Tarsus IV. And it also taught him the importance of his own morality; that while you honor the code of conduct and follow it as much as you can, sometimes adherence to its values and the “humanity” it is meant to instill and promote, require crossing those rules, even as it also requires you face the consequences of that violation.
Picard is the reverse. The shows and movies don’t go much into his early life, but we know he grew up in a loving and supportive, multi-generational family, who didn’t approve of his ambition to join starfleet. So Picard’s career began in an act of rebellion, and that quality of his character -his arrogance and willingness to spit in the face of tradition and convention; his propensity for running mad risks(because he didn’t really know what consequences were)- stayed with him through to graduation. Until his fight with the Nausicaans. A lesson quickly followed up with the Stargazer incident.
Picard’s life was safe until Starfleet, and his life in Starfleet taught him -at the edge of a knife; through his repeated near-death, and the deaths of his friends and mentors at the hands of unknown, unsuspected, almost unseen assailants- why rules existed and why caution, information-gathering, and diplomacy are so important. His early experiences in Starfleet taught Picard to temper his ambition and passion -his tendency to put himself and his assessments before everything else- with restraint, respect for others, and dutifulness to the ethics of his profession.
Picard had to learn to settle down, respect the fragility of life, and trust the rules; Kirk had to learn to be assertive, that hard situations require risk and sacrifice, and to trust himself. Both learned through Starfleet how to balance who they were and the things they believed in with the ethics and heavy responsibilities of their profession. This is a story about two people arriving at the same place(the most respected and trusted officer in the Fleet, entrusted with its flagship) from very different beginnings, and the sort of values and people Starfleet rewards. . . . . . . . . Though I’d have liked if they weren’t both farmboys. ST sure loves its agricultural origin stories :T
Onto the main cuz my maintuals all should know this.
Is nobody going to talk about how the Vulcans adopted a policy of “shoot first” against the Klingons and that that was what helped keep them at a respectful distance for such a long time because I have a hard time wrapping my head around it.
It was only logical. The culture of war cherished by Klingons had helped them to win their place under the suns of the overcrowded Galaxy. As in a pack of wolves, the strongest is the lead. Vulcans had no choice but to prove they’re the force one cannot ignore. Also take into consideration the time when Klingon-Vulcan interraction took place. It’s the time of Earth pre-Warp-5, before Archer’s Vulcans – intolerable, arrogant, half-aggressive. The Kir’Shara was a myth most of Vulcans didn’t even believe to be true but a fairy tale (or a nightmare for Vulcan High Command). So, nothing surprising here.
I still haven’t watched ENT so I can’t say a lot about that time. It just baffles me.
A species that adopts complete non-violence shoots first. Like damn.
It reminds me of the debate of how to be peaceful and keep your peaceful culture when you’re being invaded? Aren’t you allowed to defend yourself? Where does the line of self-defense end?
It seems kinda like the fascism discourse around here right now (that a democratic society is uniquely vulnerable to democratically-structured bids for it to destroy itself)–Vulcan society couldn’t have withstood anything less than shooting first against the Klingons. The losses they’d have incurred attempting to argue logic with a wholly uninterested attacking empire would have just been too severe, and they probably couldn’t have figured out how to leave an impression on them anyway.
Georgiou’s thesis (and Starfleet’s) seems to be that they’re stronger than that–Starfleet personnel can die trying, can die in support of Federation ideals, because their society and the codes of behavior backing them are strong enough to withstand the Klingon threat WITHOUT compromise.
The Vulcans chose to compromise their principles locally in order to maintain them globally, because they decided (and I think) that they weren’t up to handling it any other way. They had to meet the Klingons halfway–Starfleet doesn’t.
I think Vulcans are more deeply resistant to violence than dedicated to non-violence no matter what. Spock doesn’t like to use violence, is even more resistant to killing, and is deeply disdainful of humanity’s “logical” justifications for violence, but is willing to both be violent and to kill if out of options. The Galileo Seven(where he concedes they might have to use violence but insists on exhausting the alternatives first) and The Devil in the Dark(where the creature’s hostility forces him to kill it) come to mind. Also there’s obvsl a range of opinions on violence within “orthodox” Vulcan society given the much greater ease Tuvok has with violent options compared to Spock, and how he doesn’t insist on exhausting other avenues first. Given Spock’s class position(his family seems to be Vulcan nobility from Amok Time, is involved not only in the Science Academy and setting Vulcan’s diplomatic policy but also with preserving and adjudicating Vulcan culture[or at least, I’m assuming that bit from the reboot movie was based on something in-canon; I never read the books or anything]), and the anxiety caused by his hybrid nature, I think it’d make sense for him to be a bit more “puritanical” about philo-cultural issues like pacifism than other, or even most, Vulcans.
So A Vulcan Hello didn’t strike me as far outside the realm of Vulcan behavior; I think they’d just be very careful about the justification for it and that there’d be disagreement and debate around the policy(this could have easily been one of the many things Spock and Sarek fought over, for instance). There are two threads within larger Vulcan logical axioms that I can think of right now that might have been used to justify such a policy.
“The Needs of the Many outweigh the Needs of the Few”: Mostly just a rehash of mbl up there. The idea behind this is basically that context matters: in RoK terms that, while it is illogical to throw away one’s life, it is logical when doing so is required to preserve a greater number of lives. Generalized, this idea could be restated as “It is better to allow for a minor, limited, specific abrogation of a generally correct principle that preserves the greater good, than to adhere to that principle without compromise, even when doing so both causes greater harm than violating it would, and contradicts the core concept of the principle itself”. Vulcans are pacifists because killing is illogical(that which is alive definitionally ought to be alive. There are other reasons obvsl but this is the relevant one). Approaching the Klingons non-violently consistently led to destructions of life which threatened to create a modus vivendi inimical to life’s preservation(a state of unlimited aggression between Vulcans and Klingons). Therefore, modifying their approach to allow for a limited amount of violence scaled to their understanding of the importance violence holds culturally for Klingons, only to the point and time when Klingons will engage in dialogue, preserves life, both Vulcan and Klingon, by both preventing immediate deaths, and eventually allowing peaceful coexistence and mutual autonomy to be established.
“Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination”: Vulcans recognize that their culture is not other people’s culture. Recognizing that, they would recognize that other cultures don’t conceive of violence in the same way. Recognizing that, they would logically display a willingness to be violent, if conditions dictated its necessity for establishing dialogue, or the response of their interlocutor required it to prevent loss of life. So, once they understood the central place of violence in Klingon culture, it wouldn’t be surprising if some Vulcans would argue that displaying violence themselves only to the point where dialogue could be established is a logical choice. But again I think they’d be very cautious with this reasoning given how easily it can get away from you.
Proportionality is the main issue here. I don’t think Vulcans would be cruising around, just opening fire on every Klingon ship and colony they find; it makes more sense to me to think of them as raising shields and returning fire until Klingon ships either leave, open dialogue, or are disabled, only destroying them when given no other choice.
to your point about differing views on violence outside “orthodox” vulcans, in the TOS episode “the savage curtain”, spock is in the position to fight alongside surak, the seminal figure of vulcan. and while spock, as always, is resistant to violence but willing to use it when necessary, surak is completely personally devoted to nonviolence, refusing to fight at all.
Thanks for the addition! I totally forgot about this ep, but luckily in a big fandom there’s always other folks to remember what you can’t ^u^
Random Headcanon: That Federation vessels in Star Trek seem to experience bizarre malfunctions with such overwhelming frequency isn’t just an artefact of the television serial format. Rather, it’s because the Federation as a culture are a bunch of deranged hyper-neophiles,
tooling around in ships packed full of beyond-cutting-edge tech they
don’t really understand. Endlessly frustrating if you have to fight
them, because they can pull an effectively unlimited number of bullshit
space-magic countermeasures out of their arses – but they’re as likely
as not to give themselves a lethal five-dimensional wedgie in the
process. All those rampant holograms and warp core malfunctions and
accidentally-traveling-back-in-time incidents? That doesn’t actually
happen to anyone else; it’s literally just Federation vessels that go off the rails like that. And they do so on a fairly regular basis.
So to everyone else in the galaxy, all humans are basically Doc Brown.
Aliens who have seen the Back to the Future movies literally don’t realise that Doc Brown is meant to be funny. They’re just like “yes, that is exactly what all human scientists are like in my experience”.
THE ONLY REASON SCOTTY IS CHIEF ENGINEER INSTEAD OF SOMEONE FROM A SPECIES WITH A HIGHER TECHNOLOGICAL APTITUDE IS BECAUSE EVERYONE FROM THOSE SPECIES TOOK ONE LOOK AT THE ENTERPRISE’S ENGINE ROOM AND RAN AWAY SCREAMING
vulcan science academy: why do you need another warp core
humans: we’re going to plug two of them together and see if we go twice as fast
vsa: last time we gave you a warp core you threw it into a sun to see if the sun would go twice as fast
humans: hahaha yeah
humans: it did tho
vsa: IT EXPLODED
humans: it exploded twice as fast
I love this. Especially because of how well it plays with my headcanon that the Federation does so much better against the Borg than anyone else because beating the Borg with military tactics is nigh-impossible, but beating them with wacky superscience shenanigans works as long as they’re unique wacky superscience shenanigans.
Yeah, I love this.
Reminds me of the thing I wrote a while back about Humans in high fantasy realms – they’re basically Team Fuck It Hold My Beer I Got This.
Impulsive, passionate to a fault, the social structures they build to try and regulate this hotheadedness ironically creates even greater levels of sheer bull-headedness. Even their “cooler” heads take action in months or weeks.
All their great heroes of the past were impossibly rash by galactic standards. Humans Just Go With It, which is their great flaw but also their greatest strength.
klingons: okay we don’t get it
vulcan science academy: get what
klingons: you vulcans are a bunch of stuffy prisses but you’re also tougher, stronger, and smarter than humans in every single way
klingons: why do you let them run your federation
vulcan science academy: look
vulcan science academy: this is a species where if you give them two warp cores they don’t do experiments on one and save the other for if the first one blows up
vulcan science academy: this is a species where if you give them two warp cores, they will ask for a third one, immediately plug all three into each other, punch a hole into an alternate universe where humans subscribe to an even more destructive ideological system, fight everyone in it because they’re offended by that, steal their warp cores, plug those together, punch their way back here, then try to turn a nearby sun into a torus because that was what their initial scientific experiment was for and they didn’t want to waste a trip.
vulcan science academy: they did that last week. we have the write-up right here. it’s getting published in about six hundred scientific journals across two hundred different disciplines because of how many established theories their ridiculous little expedition has just called into question. also, they did turn that sun into a torus, and no one actually knows how.
vulcan science academy: this is why we let them do whatever the hell they want.
klingons: …. can we be a part of your federation
Humans: so, uh, funny story
Vulcan Science Academy: Let us guess – you’re not here to return the two warp cores we loaned you for experimentation, and you’re here to tell us that both of them were destroyed at once while you were trying to turn a sun into a torus again
Humans: well, half right
VSA: Wait, what is this
Humans: This is sixteen warp cores
VSA: How is this
Humans: Turns out that at the center of the stellar toroid there was a subspace anomaly that—
VSA: PLEASE don’t
Humans: —caused a refractive tachyon emission that—
VSA: This is literally impossible in every sense of the word
Humans: — depolarized the warp fields and in short—
VSA: Just no
Humans: — the warp fields got cloned and we ended up with four.
VSA: But you brought back sixteen
Humans: We had to repeat the experiment a couple of times to make sure it wasn’t a fluke
And Sarek freaking out (in a logical way) because he doesn’t know what is happening and Amanda like “Adun, no, you don’t have to call a healer, Spock is ok. No, he’s not in danger. Yes, that’s completely normal. Sarek… please, sit down and listen to me… that tooth cannot be reimplanted. Yes, he will lose all his teeth and I don’t want to have this conversation every time, ok?”
We always talk about humans as being a weird species for looking at apex predators and saying “PUPPY!” but like. Vulcans domesticated sehlats. An animal with 6-INCH fangs, capable of taking on le-matyas.
Vulcans see your wolves and raise you fanged bears. Humanity needs to step up its game.
Vulcans also saw Humans and decided it would be a great idea to make First Contact, so.
could you imagine The Enterprise having like a yearly inspection and Kirk bugs out every time because the best running ship in the fleet certainly doesn’t become so because they follow therules. He has to remind the crew a week in advance to actually call him Captain and use formal titles. Bones and Scotty’s shared bathroom which is one hundred percent a liquor cabinet/distillery cannot be a thing.
Sulu has to collect all of his plants out of everywhere that’s not the Botany Labs and hide the illegal ones he picked up during their journey in his quarters. Scotty has to remove all of his Scotty-Approved-Modifications from Engineering. Spock can’t work four shifts in a row and break the ensigns that challenge him in the gym to sparring matches. Bones can’t medically offer alcohol to anybody. Uhura needs to not curse every ten minutes, in any language. Chekov needs to focus more on his console and less on every pair of legs walking by his station.
Nurse Chapel needs to actually do what McCoy says, rather than agreeing with him then doing something wildly different but more productive and helpful. Bones isn’t allowed on the Bridge unless called. Spock needs to sit at his console, standing up and leaning over all coy is actually a safety hazard. Scotty can’t use scottish slang over the comm system
But then something *happens* like it always does to Kirk–the “hole in space/giant glowing hand” kind of thing–and all of that goes out the window–in the course of, say, 38 hours Jim gets called “jim” 50 times, Spock never goes off shift, the ship is hit and all of sulus plants fall out of the closet they were stuffed in, uhura is swearing up a storm and Scotty’s jurry-rigging everything, checkov gets caught staring at the pretty alien, and Chapel does her damn job thank you, and Bones appears in the bridge to yell at everybody like he does.
BUT, at the end of the day, Kirk has secured a new treaty because the culture values closeness over formality, Spock’s marathon at the science station has collected enough data to keep the academy busy for *months*, one of the aliens is fascinated by the plants ensuring a new collaboration between their scientists and starfleet, Scottys improvements to the systems prevent their new friends from getting eliminated by their enemies and uhura’s swearing intimidated the enemy into backing off, and the princess is totally ensnared with Chekov–oh, and Bones discovers the cure for the new mystery illness is the bathroom moonshine, and chapel saves the fucking day.
The inspector just throws up their hands because he’d read the Kirk file, *but he never believed it was true*
and stabby the knife wielding rumba stabs the inspector at least once
just moving along like everyone else 