James T. Kirk
Template:Star Trek character James Tiberius Kirk is a fictional character in the Star Trek universe. He was the main character in the original Star Trek television series and the films based on it, played by William Shatner. In 2007, J. J. Abrams announced that Kirk would be a character in the upcoming Star Trek film, although he did not say who will play the character.[1]
Actor Chris Pine is now in talks to play Kirk in the 2008 film, Star Trek.
Kirk commanded two starships named Enterprise: the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) and the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A).
Overview
Star Trek was mainly concerned with Kirk's career as captain of the Starship Enterprise, and his later career as an Admiral with Star Fleet, so some details of e.g. his earlier life may be regarded by fans of the series as unimportant, later additions to his story, or even non-canonical.
Family life
The non-canon Star Trek novel Final Frontier establishes that Kirk's father is named George Samuel Kirk. Several other novels, published by Pocket Books, list Kirk's mother's name as Winona. George Samuel, Jr. and Aurelan Kirk, Kirk's older brother and sister-in-law, died during the invasion of neural parasites on Deneva in 2267. Kirk's nephew, Peter Kirk, survived. According to dialog in the episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", Samuel "Sam" Kirk, Jr. has two other children.
Kirk is known to have fathered at least one child: David Marcus. He also fathered a child by the native woman Miramanee during a mission in which he lost his memory in the episode "The Paradise Syndrome," but Miramanee suffered injuries from her own people, resulting in a miscarriage and her own death.
In Star Trek IV, he confirmed his birth place ("Let me guess: you're from outer space!" "No, I'm from Iowa, I only work in outer space.") His birth date has never been officially established, but both the official web site and fanon speculation suggest March 22, 2233, based upon the real-life birth date and age of actor William Shatner.
Although born on Earth, Kirk apparently lived, at least for a time, on Tarsus IV, where he was one of only nine surviving witnesses to the massacre of 4,000 colonists because of utilitarian extermination by Kodos the Executioner.
Career
According to the backstory, Kirk had a distinguished career in Starfleet Academy, becoming the first person to defeat the Kobayashi Maru test that stymied cadets for many decades. Whereas any situation would be met by the simulator's overriding dictate that the cadet lose, Kirk won by rewriting the program to allow him to rescue the Kobayashi Maru's crew. For this, he received a commendation for original thinking.
According to the backstory, Kirk began his Starfleet career as a cadet in 2250. While still a student at the Academy, he was granted a field commission as an Ensign and posted to advanced training aboard the USS Republic in 2251. While there, young Ensign Kirk accused Ensign Ben Finney of carelessly leaving a switch to the atomic matter piles open which would have blown the ship up in a matter of minutes. This later would come back to haunt Kirk in the episode "Court Martial." Kirk was promoted to Lieutenant junior grade in 2253 and returned to Starfleet Academy as a student instructor.
According to the backstory, upon his graduation from Starfleet Academy in 2254, Kirk was promoted to a full Lieutenant and served aboard the USS Farragut. He gained a tremendous amount of experience aboard the Farragut, commanding his first planet survey and also surviving a deadly attack by a gas cloud alien, in which a large portion of the Farragut's crew, including Captain Garrovick, were killed. According to the episode "Obsession," Kirk later felt that he had been negligent by hesitating when facing the hostile alien life-form, which later killed Garrovick.
According to the backstory, Kirk became the youngest captain in Starfleet to date at 34. According to the official Star Trek website, Kirk was the third captain of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), following in the footsteps of Robert April, who predated Christopher Pike as captain of the vessel. Kirk commanded the Enterprise's historic five-year mission from 2265 until 2270. Alongside Kirk was his equally legendary first officer, the Human/Vulcan Spock, who also doubled as the Enterprise's science officer. Filling out the crew were chief medical officer Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, chief engineer Montgomery Scott, communications officer Uhura, helmsman Hikaru Sulu, and later navigator Pavel Chekov. The crew's dedication to Kirk mirrored his own relentless loyalty to his ship.
Upon completion of the Enterprise's mission, Kirk achieved the rank of Rear Admiral, and was assigned as Chief of Starfleet Operations. In the Star Trek novel Star Trek: The Lost Years by J.M. Dillard, it is stated that during this time period, Kirk was a diplomatic trouble-shooter for Starfleet who was sent on various missions, including a counter-terrorism mission on the planet Djana. However, Kirk was unfulfilled in this administrative role. Spock later told his friend, "Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny...anything else is a waste of material."
In 2272, to combat V'Ger, Admiral Kirk took temporary command of the Enterprise over Captain Willard Decker, who oversaw the ship's refit while in drydock. He retired from Starfleet sometime around 2282, but returned to active duty in 2284, where he was in command of Starfleet Academy training.
In Star Trek II, in 2285, Admiral Kirk briefly took command of the Enterprise in order to pursue his old enemy, Khan Noonien Singh. He was later demoted back to Captain after stealing and scuttling the Enterprise, and sabotaging the USS Excelsior that same year in order to revive Spock, who died in the mission to stop Khan. Kirk was given command of the USS Enterprise-A, and commanded the ship for several years until the vessel was decommissioned in 2293.
With Dr. Carol Marcus, Kirk had a son, David, who was killed by Klingons in 2285. The death of his son enraged Kirk for years to come. While he had always been distrustful and wary of the Klingons, after David's death, he held them collectively responsible for the death of his son. When Spock, on behalf of his father Sarek, opened negotiations with the Klingon Empire after the Praxis incident and 'volunteered' Kirk to lead the mission, Kirk was enraged. When Spock pointed out that they were dying, his sharp response was "Let them die!" It was only when the Klingon Chancellor Gorkon, on his deathbed, pleaded, "Don't let it end this way," that Kirk started to realize not all Klingons were responsible for his son's death, and finally started to let go of his hate of the Klingon people.
In Star Trek VI, a Klingon court convicted him of murdering Gorkon in 2293; he was sentenced to a life term in the prison mines of Rura Penthe, but was subsequently rescued and cleared of guilt.
Death
In the film Star Trek: Generations, Kirk was lost and presumed dead when the USS Enterprise-B was damaged by The Nexus, which he entered. In this alternate existence, he was persuaded by Jean-Luc Picard from the year 2371 to return to Veridian III and stop Tolian Soran from sacrificing 230 million lives in order for him to re-enter the Nexus. During the climax, Kirk was able to retrieve and activate a cloaking control device from a damaged construction span, enabling Picard to sabotage Soran's plans. However, the span collapsed, causing Kirk to fall. Picard manages to get to Kirk as he lay dying underneath the wreckage, and subsequently buried his predecessor on the plateau.
In the original script of Generations, Soran killed Kirk by shooting him in the back. This filmed ending was changed after negative reactions from test audiences. The revised death in the film was still not well received by many fans. Fan edits were later made to prove that the movie could have worked as an independent TNG story and did not need Kirk involved at all.
"Shatnerverse"
In books written by William Shatner, beginning with Star Trek: The Return, Kirk is brought back to life by a combined alliance between the Romulans and the Borg, hoping to use him as a weapon with which to assassinate Picard, a nemesis shared by both factions. Kirk eventually sees through the effort, and assists the Federation in shutting down the Borg homeworld, with himself pulling the plug. He survives the ordeal and goes on to have further adventures in the modern Trek universe.
Pocket Books does not acknowledge the events of the "Shatnerverse" storylines in their canon, and thus Kirk has not appeared outside of the books written by Shatner. All of the Trek novels however, have an uncertain canonicity.
Mirror Universe
In the Mirror Universe, Kirk was a loyal officer in the Starfleet of the Terran Empire. He commanded the ISS Enterprise after assassinating the ship's previous captain, Christopher Pike. Kirk's first action for the Empire was the execution of 5,000 colonists on Vega IX. His second action was the suppression of an alien uprising by simply destroying the rebels' homeworld. After briefly exchanging places with the regular universe's Kirk ("Mirror, Mirror"), the mirror Kirk was quickly locked up in the brig by Spock. He attempts to bribe Spock with money and his own command, but Spock refuses. Kirk is once again returned to the Mirror Universe at the end of the episode; it is unknown what happens to him afterward.
The regular universe's Kirk would later be revealed as having convinced the mirror Spock to make the Empire more peaceful in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Crossover." Unfortunately, Spock's reforms led to the Empire being attacked and defeated by the Klingons and the Cardassians.
Other appearances
- In the "Shatnerverse" novels written by William Shatner, the mirror Kirk is subsequently supported by mirror Spock in a bid to take control of the Terran Empire. Kirk becomes the most brutal dictator in history as the Emperor Tiberius. His Empire is eventually overthrown by Spock, as Deep Space Nine had confimed with their Mirror Universe episodes, set many years after the events, starting with Crossover. Mirror Kirk found a way to form a joint Klingon/Cardassian alliance to invade and take over Earth and Vulcan, while he was put into cryo-sleep for the next 80 years, bideing his time to return as Emperor in Spectre. In most other print sequels, such as The Sorrows of Empire by David Mack (part of the Glass Empires trade paperback), the mirror Kirk and Spock quickly become bitter enemies; eventually Kirk is assassinated by Spock, who takes sole control of the Empire.
- Kirk appears in the archive footage of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations," where Benjamin Sisko takes the chance to meet him after saving him from being killed by Arne Darvin. Kirk also meets Miles O'Brien and Julian Bashir after they get involved in the bar fight and Kirk interrogates the crew who took part in it.
- Aside from his above appearance in DS9 and his mention in "Crossover", Kirk is mentioned by Worf to Kor in the DS9 fourth season episode "The Sword of Kahless", where Worf asks Kor about the events of "Errand of Mercy."
- In the TNG episode "The Naked Now", when the crew are afflicted by a strange sickness which causes them to act drunk, Riker and Data are searching for a similar condition in the Starfleet database when they come across a log entry of the original Enterprise, commanded "by a Captain James T. Kirk." This is a reference to the TOS episode "The Naked Time".
- In the Voyager episode "Q2", Icheb writes an essay about Kirk and performs a speech about Kirk in front of Captain Janeway. Q Would later say that his speech wasn't very interesting.
- The character of Kirk is portrayed by fan James Cawley in his unofficial Internet-distributed fan-produced episodes of Star Trek: New Voyages.
Viewer reception
Many viewers write gay slash fanfics pairing Kirk and Spock.[2]
With the advent of Star Trek: The Next Generation, many Trekkers often compare the leadership styles of Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard: Kirk is deemed to very able to find ways "through unanticipated problems to reach [his] goals" and his leadership style is most "appropriate in a tight, geographically identical team with a culture of strong leadership."[3] Both Kirk and Picard are considered to be attentive to the needs of their respective crews.[4]
References
- ^ "J.J. Abrams Talks Star Trek". ComingSoon.net. 2007-04-17. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
- ^ Wendy A. F. G. Stengel, "Synergy and Smut: The Brand in Official and Unofficial Buffy The Vampire Slayer Communities of Interest" Slayage 1.4, p. 7. "Indeed, smut fanfic is distinguishable from other fanfic only by the explicit sexual descriptions. There is growing academic interest in slash fiction, those fanfics which pair characters’ names with a “/” to denote sexual activity in the upcoming story. Most of the research has dealt with Star Trek characters, the most popular being K/S, or Kirk-slash-Spock."
- ^ Paul Kimmerly & David R. Webb, "Leadership, The Final Frontier: Lessons From the Captains of Star Trek" CrossTalk: The Journal of Defense Software Engineering Oct. 2006
- ^ John D. W. Beck & Neil M. Yeager, The Leader's Window: Mastering the Four Styles of Leadership to Build High-Performing Teams New York: Wiley (1994): 38
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