The new Timeline

[Mark]

Well, that whole bit to be HONESTLY felt a bit forced. You have a CADET, not even an Ensign. Hell, by rank alone, he should have been calling Chekov SIR. On academic probation no less. You have a ship FULL of choices and the Captain makes said genius CADET ships first officer. I DID have trouble swallowing that. Why not someone who actually GRADUATED the academy?

Unless they are saying Enterprise was crewed COMPLETELY by cadets, which is possible, I suppose, but I'm dubious about that.

I mean, I can EASILY overlook it, but it DID make me raise my eyebrows. And that could have been completely averted by adding five years, and having Kirk stuck on Earth as an instructor like Mitchell said he was originally.

[Lazar]

Unless they are saying Enterprise was crewed COMPLETELY by cadets, which is possible, I suppose, but I'm dubious about that.

There's also the question of whether most of the Academy student population got killed off at Vulcan.

[Nickswitz]

Unless they are saying Enterprise was crewed COMPLETELY by cadets, which is possible, I suppose, but I'm dubious about that.

Actually it was, they said the rest of the fleet was occupied with something, That would bring me to assume that the only people there were the cadet trainers, and their cadet trainees. So I would assume that there was a trainer on board each vessel, remember they didn't think it was an advanced ubership over there, they thought they were trying to help out Vulcan with a natural disaster, so it would make sense to send just cadets, there isn't much training needed to be able to help.

[Tyyr]

Unless they are saying Enterprise was crewed COMPLETELY by cadets, which is possible, I suppose, but I'm dubious about that.

There's also the question of whether most of the Academy student population got killed off at Vulcan.

It'll probably be one of Starfleet's smaller classes in recent memory but I don't think Nero was shooting escape pods and there were still some very large pieces of debris left out there.

[Graham Kennedy]

Besides which, I never really bought into the idea that the academy on Earth was the only one. With thousands of ships, plus bases, Starfleet has to have millions of personnel at the bare minimum. Even with a thirty year average hitch that would mean graduating 100,000 cadets a year to maintain numbers. Have you ever seen anything at the Earth Starfleet Academy to indicate those sorts of numbers? The crowd behind Kirk certainly numbered no more than what, five hundred? A thousand?

I imagine each member planet hosts an academy.

[Lazar]

I imagine each member planet hosts an academy.

That would imply that there are a lot of predominately alien ships. Canonically, we know of the Intrepid, the Hera and the T'Kumbra being predominately alien, but aliens do generally seem underrepresented in Starfleet (especially among the admirals).

[Sionnach Glic]

One idea that was thought up a while ago to explain it was that there were ships that were enviromentaly suited to certain species. EG, a Vulcan ship would be hotter than a human ship, an Andorian ship would be colder, etc. Species tend to stick to ships of their own race simply for comfort, but with some being assigned to alien ships by their superiors as a sort of "hey, we're friends" thing.

[Lt. Staplic]

that would make a lot of sence...

[IntrepidPrincess]

Chekov being 17 is actualy quite interesting. He seems to have actualy graduated the Academy, despite being so young. If we take Pike's four years comment, then that means that Chekov enrolled at the age of 13!

There's another possibility I just thought of. What if it was only Chekov's first year? Was there anything in the movie saying the cadets being assigned were only graduates, I can't remember? Was Kirk even really a graduate then, or did he only get out of the academy because of the emergency? Feel free to correct me if i missed such information.

[Sionnach Glic]

I think Chekov was presented as someone who'd already graduated. Not sure though. Perhaps Graham or Ian can confirm/refute given the number of times they've seen it by now.

[stitch626]

All, I know is I saw both Checkov and Sulu in cadet uniforms at the ceremony at the end.

[Sionnach Glic]

Okay, I'm certain that Sulu was stated to have been a full officer during the film.

[thelordharry]

A recent post of mine got me to thinking...

In this new timeline, I wonder if McCoy is still going to get it on with Emony Dax

[Mark]

Chekov being 17 is actualy quite interesting. He seems to have actualy graduated the Academy, despite being so young. If we take Pike's four years comment, then that means that Chekov enrolled at the age of 13!

There's another possibility I just thought of. What if it was only Chekov's first year? Was there anything in the movie saying the cadets being assigned were only graduates, I can't remember? Was Kirk even really a graduate then, or did he only get out of the academy because of the emergency? Feel free to correct me if i missed such information.

Chekov was specifically referred to by the rank of Ensign. At no time was Kirk referred to by anything other than "Mr." until he became Captain.

Had some thoughts about GKs timeline. The Kelvin had a more TMP appearance than WOULD have been appropriate for the new timeline, and seemed to be even tougher than Reliant from TWOK. I mean, it went head to head with Nero's ship for a significant amount of time, after all. Only if we ignore what we saw of the Kelvin would GKs theory pan out.

Also, I had an idea about the new "recruitment" standards.

Pike SPECIFICALLY says, "Enlist in Starfleet" not "enroll in the Academy". Possibly not EVERYONE who shows up on that shuttle WILL go to the Academy to become officers, after being tested and found unsuited. They would then compose the enlisted ranks of Starfleet.

[Teaos]

Kirk was refered to at some stage as a command cadet.