Gene Roddenberry, the Literary Agent Hypothesis, and Federation News Media

[ElScoob]

The novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture seems to deliberately place Gene Roddenberry, in one possible interpretation, as an individual central to a 23rd century production of a dramatization of the USS Enterprise’s five-year mission under the command of James T. Kirk. Roddenberry would later pen a prose account of the Vejur incident of 2273, with then-Admiral Kirk’s endorsement as an accurate depiction of the events he’d personally experienced.

That is kind of secondary to my point.

What I’m wondering/speculating about are the publicly and historically significant aspects of those events and how they were conveyed to the general public (and maybe secondarily how Roddenberry’s dramatizations were received and/or how they differed from the factual accounts).

For instance:

The Enterprise attempting to leave the galaxy. Could that have been a matter of public interest like Apollo 11 or other firsts of space exploration?

The Neutral Zone incident: apart from the fact that it could have resulted in a second Romulan war, but didn’t… how was the discovery of the Romulans’ resemblance to Vulcans, after a century of mystery, disseminated to the public? How did they react?

The next (abortive) war with the Klingon Empire. The implication was that it was not at all unexpected. What did the public know? Were they stressed out by the idea that another war with the Klingons, after the last war only just stopped short of Earth, was imminent and only stopped by a pretty literal deus ex machina?

I know I’m stepping a little on the boundaries of what was actually depicted in TOS vs, where events fit in the larger canon.

My main question is: how much did, say, regular Earth people know about what happened from 2266-2269, and how did it effect their daily lives?

 

[I am not Herbert]

A bit of a mindbending question, as it requires one to think about nesting dolls of fictional universes. My first suggestion would be to perhaps move the conversation to the Trek Lit forum. The description of the Roddenberry-as-storyteller aspect of the TMP novelization, though accurate (IIRC), is going to baffle a lot of the regular posters here, if they haven't read or don't recall that book. But it's an interesting question, and there are likely some folks there who have tried to conceptually puzzle out this idea, either in their work or just in their own minds.

Taking the question more broadly for purposes of the present forum, there isn't a whole provided in TOS (or TAS, I think) as to what was happening on and around Earth (or even the UFP more broadly) outside of Starfleet from 2266-2269, apart from colonies in some sort of peril. But there are some individuals from which we can reverse engineer a little understanding about the non-Starfleet Earth culture of which they were at least a part (Miranda Jones, C. Jones, Mudd, Amanda Grayson, the theater troupe of Conscience of King, the therapeutic worlds of Dagger of Mind/Whom Gods Destroy, the need for the resource extraction specialists of Devil in Dark/Mudd's Women, Richard Daystrom, the consolidated information technologies of Memory Alpha and the legal profession (other than Sam Cogley of course), Janice Lester). I always thought the most interesting one in this respect was the nascent back-to-nature movement of the Way to Eden, suggesting an entire class of UFP residents who reject the premises of the way of life that in TOS is otherwise offered as a near-Utopia.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

So if I understand this correctly, you're asking what the in-universe general public knew of Kirk's activities? What the news reported and books recorded?

 

[Nerys Myk]

My main question is: how much did, say, regular Earth people know about what happened from 2266-2269, and how did it effect their daily lives?

Until the films, most of what the Enterprise was up to happened a long way from Earth. So, other than say a news reports they might not know much. Nor would there be much of an impact on their daily lives. Of course something like a threat of war would cause some worry and have impact. A big name like Daystrom would probably make the evening news. Mudd's antics, not so much.

 

[I am not Herbert]

Until the films, most of what the Enterprise was up to happened a long way from Earth. So, other than say a news reports they might not know much. Nor would there be much of an impact on their daily lives. Of course something like a threat of war would cause some worry and have impact. A big name like Daystrom would probably make the evening news. Mudd's antics, not so much.

Viewed from the opposite direction, no Earth civilian in TOS ever says "wow, the Captain Kirk??" upon meeting him. To the contrary, it is the bridge crew that is starstruck upon meeting people Daystrom and Tristan Adams. Seems like starfaring became an only intermittently interesting aspect of life for those not regularly engaged in it-- probably something like NASA missions by the early 80s: front page news only when something goes wrong. Seems consistent with human nature.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Viewed from the opposite direction, no Earth civilian in TOS ever says "wow, the Captain Kirk??" upon meeting him. To the contrary, it is the bridge crew that is starstruck upon meeting people Daystrom and Tristan Adams. Seems like starfaring became an only intermittently interesting aspect of life for those not regularly engaged in it-- probably something like NASA missions by the early 80s: front page news only when something goes wrong. Seems consistent with human nature.

It's possible that Kirk is simply not that famous outside of spacefaring circles. Once Kirk moves into the history books it might be a different story.

 

[Christopher]

I tend to assume that the dramatizations of Kirk's adventures would've come out years or even decades after the fact, once they'd been established as historical figures -- like how Desilu's The Untouchables came out nearly 3 decades after the real-life events it was loosely inspired by. I figure a lot of stuff would've been classified, particularly anything involving time travel, military conflicts with rival nations, and other sensitive matters. Something like Richard Daystrom's breakdown might have been classified until after his death, to protect him and his family.

I suspect that Roddenberry's idea of TOS being an in-universe dramatization was inspired by his first work in TV writing, adapting real police cases into premises for Dragnet episodes. (Note that both Dragnet and TOS are framed by narration representing their main characters' official reports.) Dragnet famously declared that "only the names have been changed to protect the innocent," and of course its lead characters were depicted as solving cases based on many different police officers' real experiences. So it's possible that Roddenberry imagined TOS might have been a similar amalgam, that many of the missions Kirk's fictionalized crew were depicted as undertaking may have actually been carried out by multiple different starships in real life (which is a lot more plausible than the same crew having over two dozen life-and-death adventures per year and not suffering crippling PTSD). Also, as with The Untouchables, some of the supporting characters may have been amalgams of real people or entirely fictional, which could also explain why there was so little turnover and reassignment in the core cast compared to realistic military procedure. The names and attributes of guest characters and even alien species might have been fictionalized as well.

In my movie-era TOS novel The Higher Frontier, I proposed that there was an in-universe series called The Enterprise Chronicles that was based on the declassified events of the 5-year mission and airing about a decade or so after the fact. I implied that it was similar to TOS in some ways without claiming that it actually was TOS -- because a 23rd-century series wouldn't look like it was made in the 1960s, and because I doubt that certain things like the existence of the Guardian of Forever would ever be declassified for public consumption. I also mentioned that it had tie-in books and comics telling entirely fictional adventures about the Enterprise crew, and threw in allusions to some of the crazier stories like the Gold Key comics.

Viewed from the opposite direction, no Earth civilian in TOS ever says "wow, the Captain Kirk??" upon meeting him. To the contrary, it is the bridge crew that is starstruck upon meeting people Daystrom and Tristan Adams.

At the time of TOS, Kirk's main claim to fame was being the youngest captain of a Starfleet capital ship. He would've still been near the beginning of his career, not yet a widely known figure. Roddenberry suggested in the TMP novel that Kirk's fame began upon his return from the 5-year mission, when Admiral Nogura played him up as the face of Starfleet for publicity purposes. Presumably saving Earth from V'Ger would've solidified his reputation still further.

What bugs me is the way modern productions treat captains like Pike and Kirk as the only famous 23rd-century captains, forgetting that Kirk himself idolized Garth of Izar as Starfleet's greatest captain, whose exploits he studied at the Academy. At the time of Discovery's first two seasons and Strange New Worlds, Garth should still be an admired and important figure within Starfleet, since his fall to madness is still years in the future. Yet there's no sign in those shows that he even exists.

 

[Cryogenator]

The novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture seems to deliberately place Gene Roddenberry, in one possible interpretation, as an individual central to a 23rd century production of a dramatization of the USS Enterprise’s five-year mission under the command of James T. Kirk.

As a time traveler, or a different person named Gene Roddenberry who was native to the 23rd century?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Starfleet Academy would be a whole different tier - out of necessity, students would learn and have access to information that the general public wouldn't, or at least wouldn't regard with the same importance, given their daily lives look vastly different from that of Starfleet personnel. So a textbook written for history students in a civilian college wouldn't place the same emphasis on Garth and Kirk that a Starfleet curriculum would.

Have any Starfleet crewmembers distinguished themselves on a grand scale before they became great career officers? Those individuals might face greater scrutiny earlier on in their careers, or perhaps, out of necessity, might take on an alias to avoid public exposure of missions which are best kept (semi) secret.

It's harder to ignore what's going on when Kirk finally saves Earth in a very visible way. If he wore a cape and rescued kittens from trees and babies from burning buildings every day like a superhero, people would have been more familiar with him sooner, but he didn't.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

What bugs me is the way modern productions treat captains like Pike and Kirk as the only famous 23rd-century captains, forgetting that Kirk himself idolized Garth of Izar as Starfleet's greatest captain, whose exploits he studied at the Academy. At the time of Discovery's first two seasons and Strange New Worlds, Garth should still be an admired and important figure within Starfleet, since his fall to madness is still years in the future. Yet there's no sign in those shows that he even exists.

Maybe they can't refer to Garth without paying a royalty to the writers of "Whom Gods Destroy," neither of whom was a producer of the series.

Also, the people making today's "Star Treks" (a very loose term after Section 31) might not be familiar with TOS beyond the cultural clichés, or they don't care, or they actively want to avoid getting too fannish. All of that could be true, and the writer-royalty problem still be true as well.

 

[David cgc]

Over in the novelverse, there was the idea that Kirk's celebrity really started with "Balance of Terror," since the return of the Romulans would definitely be front-page news. I imagine his public image would start to snowball from there, as he was involved in more newsworthy events, and the public interest in Kirk and his crew built up, with exposure creating demand for news about the Enterprise's exploits, leading to further exposure until he started to become the poster boy of Starfleet.

We do have a canon point for when Kirk started to become a public figure; In GEN, Harriman says he read about the Enterprise's missions in grade school. Depending on how you take it, that could mean sometime before he was 18, but more likely before 14 or so. It also depends on how old Harriman actually is. If he was 38, like Alan Ruck at the time, then he would've been 11 or 12 around TOS season 1, which suggests that the Enterprise's five-year-mission became famous, at least to enthusiastic children, as it was happening.

 

[UssGlenn]

As a time traveler, or a different person named Gene Roddenberry who was native to the 23rd century?

Different Person, native to the time. Our Gene wouldn't exist. (Trek probably got Galaxy Quest instead).

 

[Christopher]

We do have a canon point for when Kirk started to become a public figure; In GEN, Harriman says he read about the Enterprise's missions in grade school. Depending on how you take it, that could mean sometime before he was 18, but more likely before 14 or so. It also depends on how old Harriman actually is. If he was 38, like Alan Ruck at the time, then he would've been 11 or 12 around TOS season 1, which suggests that the Enterprise's five-year-mission became famous, at least to enthusiastic children, as it was happening.

Hmm, yes, the same way I watched the later Apollo landings on live TV when I was very young, and the way people in the 1920s-30s eagerly followed the exploits of Charles Lindbergh or Amelia Earhart. Some of the sensitive political and military missions may have been classified until long after the fact, but the primary mission of scientific exploration and first contact would probably have been big news.

Although what bugs me is the tendency to assume that Kirk and his crew were the only famous Starfleet heroes of the era. It seems likely to me that many Starfleet crews were making equally important discoveries, saving planets in jeopardy, and so forth. Just because the television audience was only aware of one such ship doesn't mean the same would go for the people in-universe.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I suspect that Roddenberry's idea of TOS being an in-universe dramatization was inspired by his first work in TV writing, adapting real police cases into premises for Dragnet episodes. (Note that both Dragnet and TOS are framed by narration representing their main characters' official reports.) Dragnet famously declared that "only the names have been changed to protect the innocent," and of course its lead characters were depicted as solving cases based on many different police officers' real experiences. So it's possible that Roddenberry imagined TOS might have been a similar amalgam, that many of the missions Kirk's fictionalized crew were depicted as undertaking may have actually been carried out by multiple different starships in real life (which is a lot more plausible than the same crew having over two dozen life-and-death adventures per year and not suffering crippling PTSD).

I have a vague memory of some thread in the Lit Forum years ago where the author was positing a whole line of retro pulp novel Star Trek adventures with a series of different Captains like Kirk, Pike, and Decker. I think the premise was that all of the disparate adventures of the various Captains were given over to Captain Kirk when a Star Trek series was made. They'd mocked up a few retro style paperback covers, too.

I'm not finding the thread in my bookmarks or in a search of the Trek Lit section, though. Is this ringing a bell with anyone else?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

The new UESPA Series of books thread

Hard to believe, but this year marks the 20th anniversary of my UESPA series! Some of you may remember that I created a fictional series of books set in a universe where Star Trek never existed as a tv show, but did exist as a series of books covering about three generations worth of time with...

www.trekbbs.com

 

[JonnyQuest037]

The new UESPA Series of books thread

Hard to believe, but this year marks the 20th anniversary of my UESPA series! Some of you may remember that I created a fictional series of books set in a universe where Star Trek never existed as a tv show, but did exist as a series of books covering about three generations worth of time with...

www.trekbbs.com

Thanks! That wasn't the thread, but that's the fictional book series I was talking about. I was likely thinking of this thread from 2014.