RE: Explaining the "No Female Captains" thing. | Report this post to moderator
By: falcon (Odo's file, contact) @ 19:39:48 on Jul 26, 2004

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"Other than in times of war"... Hmmmm... "Other than" = "not allowed". ;-)

Not necessarily "not allowed," but more like, "We don't trust your ability to lead a ship with 5,000 men and women on it when war breaks out, so we're going to bring in a rear admiral, make your ship his flagship, make you part of a battle group, and make you his XO, but you can keep the rank of captain and you can maybe have your command back when the war is over. Or not."

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Well it's been pretty much a biological fact since at least when I was back in high school taking genetics. And obviously well before. Something about that "Y" chromosome, which is considered "incomplete". LOL!

I didn't do that well in Biology, which is why I majored in Journalism (and later, when I finally completed my Bachelor's degree I changed to business management). And could the "incompleteness" of the Y chromosome be due to the fact that it only has three straight lines, while the X has four? (I was going to say "third leg," but, well, you know... :-) ) BTW, have you ever read the short story "The Procrustean Petard" by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath, in "Star Trek: The New Voyages 2"? Very interesting story about taking away the Y chromosome, or adding an extra, and the results thereof.

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It's possible that, in the future, techniques could be developed that allow doctors to determine whether one small sperm is compatible with one egg...and that could, theoretically, allow hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of new babies to be created within the span of days or weeks. This could, obviously, allow the planet to be repopulated within a very short time if we were to destroy ourselves in our idiocy.

"Logan's Run". LOL

Oooh, yeah, forgot about that one!

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I still think it was an attempt to go back to his original concept of a female Number One. But considering that the current "Number One" was Spock, that would be too complicated, so it was a what the hell and let's make her Kirk instead, and thus "female captain" (with a plot device that Kirk's "mind" is inside her).

I remember Roddenberry said something like, when the network approved Spock but disapproved Number One, he felt like half a loaf was better than none. It does seem like this was his chance to get a little revenge for that. :-)

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Meanwhile, the symbollism of the "woman Captain", is lost due to not identifying the actress as really being "Kirk" (by slapping a uniform on her as a means for the supposed "real" Kirk to "take charge").

That might have been too obvious, and what would be the logical reason for that? Why would Kirk-as-Lester put on a uniform? I can't think of a reason, but that doesn't mean one doesn't exist. What would you think?

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I still think it's a last laugh for those who can see it, but unfortunately how it was done sortof did the opposite. That's why I say that if they had allowed the actress to put on a uniform - which actually, would have required she wear the male version of it with pants (similar to "The Cage" where the uniforms were all the same for men and women - tunic and pants... ;-)), THAT might have helped put the symbollic gesture out there, but also would have made for some strange questions beyond those that the ep was most likely generating.

And like I said, the biggest question would have been "Why?" I'm not even sure that Spock would have thought it a good idea after his mind-meld, because the truth (when it finally came out) would have been all that was necessary. Now, let's say the mind-transfer that ultimately wore off, didn't. Let's say that it was determined that Kirk was going to be stuck in Lester's body. Then, you could have logically put her in a uniform. But there wouldn't seem to be a reason to do it other than that.

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A generation which ignores history has no past and no future. -- Robert Heinlein

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falcon

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