uh....

[7 of 11]

Ok, one of my player's is wondering if Kirk is alive in my campaign (2379) or not. The movies say he's dead so I agree but he describes to me that the Nexus ribbon some how keeps a "image" of those who's ever been in it. Kinda like how Spock survived. Is that a BIG enough loophole in Star Trek canon (I'm into canon) to say he's alive? If he's alive his body is dust and bones now right? Does anyone use Kirk (or TOS) in their campaigns (any-era) and aren't they a bit powerful? What's anyone take on this?

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[Shoshuro]

I remember them bringing him back for one book, been awhile since I even looked at a paperback Trek novel so can't honestly say. Someone else here can.

From what was shown in Generations there was a body left, at least enough of one to die in Picard's arms, and for him to bury. Yes the Nexus does hold an "image" of the person. Guinon talked to Picard in it. The way it was done though I got the feeling the person only exisited inside the Nexus, it was a memory of who that person was when they entered it. Of course an intreasting thing would be someone who escaped and then went back in. Would they continue where they left off? Would they run into their former self? Maybe something for another thread.

As for Kirk. As far as I care he's dead. Gone. He died for what he belived was a heroic cause (hey, saving a planetful of aliens HAS to be heroic) and to me bringing him back would just be a waste. I've seen too many "He's Dead, no he's not 5 issues/episodes" later in Marvel Comics.

[KillerWhale]

In the Nexus, time is meaningless: all points of time at once are at the same point. So IMO, the Nexus does not keep an image of the persons who entered it, they are still there as all points of time are one. Does that mean you can bring the same person back an endless number of times? Dunno. Maybe. Or maybe you would end up with a reality paradox, a parallel universe or anything.

In my campaign, Kirk is dead and the Nexus is on its way out of the galaxy. Kirk is just a reference for the players (one of them is nearing his renown...!).

As for the books where Kirk's not dead...
(spoiler)
Never read them whole, but the Borg ressucitate him in a Locutus-like attempt. Kirk finally joins Picard (treating him a bit like a subordinate.... And finally they blow up Unimatrix Zero. Very bad novels it seemed.

[Dan Gurden]

The novels. Well, there is a string of Novels where Kirks body was recovered from under the Cairn that Picard prepared, and a Romulan/Borg alliance re-animated him as a Drone (or some such drivel) to destroy the Federation...

Its worth noting that these books are written by Bill Shatner himself, and he manages to make Kirk a 'Mary Sue' in his own story... So not much water held by this theory, but good if you like it.

The Nexus. Sure there is no time in the Nexus, and as stated that means that it is the real kirk in there, an echo of his existenec in the Nexus if you will. However, remember that Guinan was also in there, and as she had left nearly a century before (in the galaxy timeline) she was unable to leave... I would inmagine that the same restriction applies to Kirks 'echo', having already left once.

The Character Concept. At the end of the day, this is all the justification you need. We are talking about Kirk, Starfleet Legend, master of the impossible. When the chips are down and your backs against the wall, who do you really want at your side? Kirk has pulled so many improbable stunts and succeded against all the odds so often that the gods MUST be smiling on him... And that little fight with Sornan could not have used up his Courage Points!!!

Hell, the sheer number of temporal violations he racked up, offer a chance to place Kirk anywhere and anytime you like...

So at the end of the day. IF YOU WANT KIRK, then he is alive. If you have no feelings either way, dont mention it, you never know, one day you might have a story involving him and that should be reason enough to resurect the fallen hero (even if he is the Starship Captain equivalent of a Cowboy)...

[Tobian]

It's an interesting causality paradox, but while Kirk might be dead, Soran is probably still alive, because for Kirk to have left the Nexus, means Soran had to have entered it. Since time is irrelevant it would mean he wouldnot have been affected by the changes in the timeline. Weather or not he wants to leave is another matter!

From the story of the film it would appear that Guinan wasn't much more than an echo. Since the Nexus is a temporal singularity and part of her lives in there, then it's probably why she has that very unusual ability to see changes in the timeline, because she is temporally anchored in a way? However personally I do like to make El Aurians have hidden depths - why else would Q be afraid of her hehe.

Ok I think I took this off thread enough..

[Dan Gurden]

Originally posted by Tobian
It's an interesting causality paradox, but while Kirk might be dead, Soran is probably still alive, because for Kirk to have left the Nexus, means Soran had to have entered it. Since time is irrelevant it would mean he wouldnot have been affected by the changes in the timeline. Weather or not he wants to leave is another matter!

Ah... But not so... Remember Sorana and Guinan entered and exited the Nexus in the same group, and so while there is a Soran in the Nexus, it would be as much an echo as Guinan was...

Pity they didn't have him intrude on Picards fantasy... Giving an Angel and Devil approach!

The real Soran is worse off than Kirk, having been spread in itty bitty pieces and smeared across the rockface by his exploding missile... Standing at Ground Zero will do that to you...

[C5]

Actually, the Nexus is a weird enough phenomenon to allow whatever you want to happen around it. The only thing that has was acertained was the fact that, once someone enters and then leaves it, a shadow remains in the Nexus but can't leave (which BTW means that there's also a shadow of Soren in the Nexus - in addition to himself).

Based on that, I think you can extrapolate whatever you want to have Kirk alive or not. Plus, as Dan said, you can find a lot of reasons in Kirk's past to have him present in the future (in Trial and Tribbleations, the DTI agents mention something like 70 breaches of Temporal Prime Directive for Kirk IIRC... this leaves a lot of room for time travels since not 70 of them appeared in TOS).
And you can even explain the fact that Kirk (and the whole Enterprise crew BTW) seems to have aged 15 years in 3 years... (between the end of TOS and TMP, which I think occurs in 2271).

[C5]

Originally posted by Dan Gurden
Ah... But not so... Remember Sorana and Guinan entered and exited the Nexus in the same group, and so while there is a Soran in the Nexus, it would be as much an echo as Guinan was...

Actually, Soran managed to re enter the Nexus, when Picard was unable to stop him. Since Picard was able to enter the Nexus and get Kirk (even though he then prevented himself from entering it by changing the timeline), we must guess Soran managed to enter the Nexus as well this time... and stay there.

Mmh... life must not be very easy there, with all these shadow Picard and shadow Kirk around...

[Tobian]

Ahh, that was a Typo - I meant to say because Pickard had entered the Nexus at the same time as Soran, that would mean Soran is still in there, with or without his shadow

There is nothing to stop having Kirk in any of your adventures as his entire life is not documented, so you could have him brought in via temporal investigations (of the future) for one reason or another from his period of life between ST 6 and 7..

There is nothing to stop you rewriting canon either - it never stopped the writers of the TV series!

[7 of 11]

Whoa! Sensitive subject talking about Mr. Kirk there! Thank you all for your unique replies. Well the player is a fan of the book by Mr. Shatner and I told him NO! (cuz I'm a canon type person) unless he can prove it thru the movies (I thought THAT would be a air tight deal, *Bzzzzz*). His example was thru the Movies Generations and with the replies I'm getting, it sounds about impossible. So if you left the Nexus, you leave an impression or "echo" per se but is it possible to capture that "echo" and reanimate it to Kirk? He said maybe clone Kirk using the ashes from the grave (they did in Nemisis with Picard), then do a Vulcan Ca-tah (The ST II thing with McCoy and Spock) to transfer his echo into his clone body (which with accelarated aging)? That was his explanation and it sounded pretty good so I decided to put it to the only experst I know which would be you all. He kinda blew me away with the story (he might have been thinking about since 1994 when the movie came out), so I told him I would get back with him. The next game session is the 25 of Aug, so I'm ready for any and all input you have! And no I'm not running a game with Bill. Thanks in advance!

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A

[Tobian]

At the end of the day - you are the GM, if you want him to fail, he will fail!

Besides weather Kirk could be reanimated or not, the Nexus is only a few hundred thousand kilomiters wide, you're never going to fit Shatners ego back through that now!

From the evidence we've seen - I.e. the film, you can't bring back an echo. I also wonder if the echo only remains in there so long as you are alive too? I don't think there's enough of anything to clone or Vulcan Mind meld and - who's going to want to attempt to actually try and get him - it IS the Nexus - remember Dr. Tolian Soren puzzling on that for 60 years etc! I also don't think you can clone a mirror image of yourself, or your shadow, all you would do was copy what you had - i.e something ephemeral - a reflection of a reflection!

There is of course one get out clause - Q - but then Q could just bring him back from whenever he felt like doing it from anyway!

[C5]

As Tobian said, you're the GM - you decide whether it's possible or not. However, some points to ponder :

- Finding Kirk's DNA isn't that difficult - after all, if the Klingons could clone Kahless who died hundred of years ago, I guess cloning a legend of the Federation shouldn't be too difficult. There probably are some blood samples somewhere in Doctor McCoy's lab or something like that. Of course, you can also look for Kirk's remains if you feel like a gravedigger.
- Like Tobian said (again ), entering the Nexus seems to be no piece of cake, otherwise Soran would long ago have stolen a shuttlecraft and flown through it. Entering the Nexus again (without destroying a star in the process) would certainly require a lot of research.
- As for whether you can take the Katrah (sp?) of a shadow inside the Nexus... that's really to the Narrator to decide. I really don't see how to tell, based from the movies, whether it's possible to mind meld with a Nexus shadow or not, given how completely alien the Nexus is.
- Of course, you have to find a Vulcan priest afterward willing to do the transfer into Kirk's cloned body. Although apparently the Fal tor pan (sp ?) ritual can be performed with humans as well, it may be quite hard to convince a priest skilled enough to do it. Narrator fiat again, here.

Mind you, this would make for a really interesting scenario in itself....

"Bones... I used to call you Bones..."

[pesterfield]

How about changing what happened after Picard met Kirk in the Nexus. Instead of going back mere minutes have Kirk go back to the Enterprise B and fail to rescue the ships.

Soran is in the Nexus, Kirk is alive, and Picard might be able to pop back to France and save his brother in the bargain.

What about that machine that made the Kirk android, think it'd still be in the memory banks?

What about the mind switching machine Janet Lester used, could Kirk's information still be in there? Someone is at the station where the thing is finally being studied and somehow activates it. Since it's only one person the machine transfers the last thing it had in memory a copy of Kirk and Lesters ingrams. Now you have a triple personality with two of them hating each other.

[Cybrludite]

Well, there's my alternate movie era setting... Trek V didn't happen, of course, and Trek VI ends up being quite different. After the assassination, the Klingons manage a bridge hit on the Enterprise. Upshot is that the Big E ends up destroying the Kronos I & her cloaked escorts while Kirk is all but dead in sickbay. Kirk ends up in a Captain Pike-type chair, complete with blinky yes/no lights.

[Capt. K. Vaughn]

In the end, it is your campaign and you have to be completely comfortable with whatever you are going to do. In my campaign Kirk is dead but that does not prevent him from possibly showing up in the future.

There are so many ways to bring Kirk into the future and several have been listed here but I have not done so yet in my campaign though I have brought some of Kirk's enemies forward just to act as nemeses for my PCs.

In fact, Khan and his followers are running around somewhere in the alpha quadrant and have been for about five years after Q resurrected them to do a comparative study on that portion of human history and when he got bored he left the PCs to deal with them and Khan to his own devices.

After all, Khan and his followers would be dead back at that point so why put them back? The PCs really did not like Q after that.

Regards,
CKV.