#tos crew

Yes, I know this is 8 years old at this point but my Autistic Brain decided to freak out about this again today for no reason at all so hear me out bc it drives me absolutely NUTS every time I think about it.

So basically, the circumstances required for Reboot Spock to find this photo in Spock Prime’s possessions after he died are absolutely wild. Let’s walk through it shall we:

First thing to remember is that this photo does not exist in the Kelvin timeline. At all. The characters all look different and even if they’re supposed to canonically grow up to look exactly the same as the TOS characters, Spock Prime went back in time from his own universe so the photo cannot exist in the Kelvin timeline, at least yet.

Second thing is that Spock Prime must have carried this photo on his person when he went back in time in the jellyfish ship.

This is because Nero captured Spock (and his ship) and stranded him on Delta Vega, presumably with nothing but the clothes on his back and whatever else he might happen to have been carrying in his pockets.

Also, he couldn’t have stored the photo on his ship to retrieve later because Reboot Spock blew it up to ignite the red matter and destroy Nero’s ship. So whatever Spock Prime brought with him from the Prime Universe must have been on his person when he was stranded on Delta Vega.

Now, when Spock first sees Reboot Kirk in the cave, he says the classic “I have been and always shall be your friend” along with “It is remarkably pleasing to see you again, old friend.”

If we take a peek at the timeline for a sec, Kirk Prime disappeared into the Nexus in Star Trek: Generations in the year 2293, when everyone presumably thought he died. Now, Kirk did reappear into ‘normal space/time’ in the year 2371 when the rest of Generations takes place, but only Picard really saw Kirk before he died for real—so basically, the last time Spock could have seen Kirk Prime was in 2293. In the Prime Universe, the Romulan star went supernova in 2387, which is when Spock Prime goes back and creates the Kelvin Timeline.

SO: all this means that it has been at least 94 years (2293-2387) since Spock Prime has seen a Kirk in any universe. THEREFORE: this means that Spock Prime was carrying THAT TOS CREW PHOTO on his person 94 years after the last time he had seen Kirk. Whether he had been carrying it on his person for the entirety of those 94 years, or just during his mission to try and save Romulus, or something in between is anyone’s guess. But basically, even almost a century later, Spock thought those people and that photo were important enough to take with him on his body when he was sent to save Romulus. (A mission that required extreme speed and efficiency, if I might add).

ANYWAY: the photo in Beyond is shown as a rather small, yet touching, moment of nostalgia for fans of the original Star Trek show, but when you really start to think about what was required for that photo to exist in Reboot Spock’s possession at that moment, it just starts to drive me a little bit absolutely bonkers.

Me, missing the bright primary colours something fierce:

It made me really appreciate the TOS crew and the wild frontier era that they managed to survive -- not only survive, but became the staple and measure of success for the Starfleet that took shape after them.

Folks forget that Kirk's crew were one of the few of the original 12 Starships launched that actually returned from their assigned mission with some semblance of crew and ship intact.

A lot of information was gathered and established during that exploratory time -- the reason the TOS crew findings are often mentioned in TNG onward is largely due to them being among the lucky few crew who made it back to share their findings during that time.

This benefited every crew afterward who built upon their findings as they revised based on experiences. Things that happened in that time were addressed in regulation later as a lesson learned.

Regarding the 12 ships:

- The Immunity Syndrome (USS Intrepid)

- The Doomsday Machine (USS Constellation)

- The Tholian Web (USS Defiant).

Considering only 12 flagships were in the OG launch during Kirk's time, that is a solid 1/4 of the ships and crews that never made it back.

But those aren't even the ones that were partially destroyed with casualties, or all of the ships where 100% of the ship and crew did not return. There are more:

- The Excaliber was crippled and lost all hands in The Ultimate Computer, and severe damage was dealt to the Lexington, Potemkin, and Hood.

- The Exeter lost almost all hands in The Omega Glory.

So that's 8 of the 12 ships/crews that were launched circa Kirk's Enterprise 5 year mission that were either entirely destroyed, or severely damaged.

When you consider those odds and how so many extraordinarily capable and well trained crews never made it back, it makes the original series crew all the more remarkable.

Not only did they return with the flagship and crew relatively intact, but they literally became the standard on which Starfleet measured and trained others moving forward.

New character: *starts speaking with scottish accent*

Look who's here! Amazing stickers by Fran

“Its like the garden of eden…. But with LAND MINES"

*just fucking decks someone* “I won’t hurt you” “… u just struck me”