Since we now see Kirk as a LT in 2259-60 in SNW, thought I’d take a look back at figuring out his early service history in Starfleet. Originally posted here. Incidentally, Kirk, Tilly and Ortegas were all born in 2233.
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Since I'm on a chronology kick, here's another analysis - my third in the series, by my reckoning (after sorting out where Uhura's service on Pike's Enterprise fits in and sorting out when each of PIC's seasons take place).
For the longest time, we have been confused about James T. Kirk's early service history. We know that he was born in Iowa, Earth on March 22, 2233, and we know that he took command of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 in 2265, and commanded her and her successor ship, off-and-on, until his official recorded death in 2293 and subsequently his actual death in 2371. However, what happened between 2233 and 2265 was shrouded in a bit of mystery and confusion (except for his stay on Tarsus IV in 2246 - TOS: “The Conscience of the King”).
Here are the following relevant pieces of the puzzle.
??: ENS Kirk is serving on the USS Republic with Ben Finney "some years" after they first met at the Academy when Finney was an instructor. Kirk logs a mistake which draws Finney a reprimand and gets him sent to the bottom of the promotion list (TOS: "Court Martial").
??: LT Kirk teaches at Starfleet Academy - one of his students is Gary Mitchell (TOS: "Where No Man Has Gone Before").
2255: "[A] brash young LT Kirk on his first planet survey" visits Neural, 13 years prior to his next visit in 2268 (TOS: "A Private Little War").
2257: Kirk is serving on the USS Farragut, under CPT Garrovick, who was his CO "from the day [Kirk] left the Academy", when Garrovick is killed by a dikironium cloud creature, which Kirk re-encounters 11 years later (TOS: "Obsession").
If you look at these pieces, the conundrum becomes obvious. What ship was Kirk serving on when he left the Academy? When did he actually graduate? Which ship visited Neural? Was it the Republic or the Farragut? Did Garrovick command both the Republic and the Farragut in succession? When did Kirk teach Gary Mitchell?
There are all kinds of theories to try and reconcile this, and you'll find discussions on Memory Alpha about it. But recently, in the Season 1 finalé of SNW: "A Quality of Mercy", we get a glimpse of Kirk's service record. Granted, it's from an alternate timeline, but the divergent event being Pike's survival, Kirk's record precedes that, so we can be fairly sure that the Prime Kirk has the same record.
Kirk's service record in that episode states this as his assignment history:
USS Farragut
Starfleet Academy
USS Republic
We'll take it as it's in reverse chronological order, as most resumés are. While production art is always a toss-up, I think this gives us a decent basis to build an hypothesis on. What this tells us is that that the Republic came first - which tracks, as that's the lowest rank we have on Kirk at the time.
We also see that a Starfleet Academy assignment comes between his Republic stint and his service on the Farragut. This offers us a way to reconcile Kirk's claim that Garrovick was his CO "from the day [Kirk] left the Academy" - namely, Kirk wasn't talking about his graduation, he was talking about him leaving his instructor post.
Now we can get down to the details: what year did Kirk graduate? It had to be before 2255, and possibly at least a year or two before that, to fit in his Academy stint and his service on the Republic. If we take it that he entered the Academy at the usual age, which would be the year he turns 19, that would be 2252 and would graduate in the normal scheme of things in May 2256 (I assume May because the standard academic year in the US goes usually from September to May/June - the US Naval Academy graduates their classes in May).
But that doesn't jibe with our chronology, which requires that he be a LT in 2255. Which leads me to the idea that Kirk entered the Academy early - perhaps at age 17. As I've mentioned before, early entry to the Academy is possible: Wesley Cruser took the entrance exams when he was 16 (TNG: “Coming of Age”), presumably to enter when he was 17. If Kirk did the same, he could have entered the Academy as early as 2250, which would mean he graduated in May 2254 as an ENS.
We see in PIC: "The Star Gazer" (which I'd previously established as September 2400) Picard giving an address to cadets. We know the audience is cadets because Elnor is there and he specifically calls Elnor out as the first Romulan cadet. After the speech, the cadets get their assignments.
If we assume that things have not changed since Kirk's day in terms of the timing, then ENS Kirk would have gotten his assignment in September 2254 to the USS Republic. Squeezing in the Finney incident and his reassignment to Starfleet Academy in later 2254 to early 2255 is just possible.
Perhaps the Finney incident earned Kirk a quick promotion to LT due to his diligence but made Kirk unpopular enough among the rest of the Republic crew that they felt it'd be better for him to be reassigned to another starship.
So LT Kirk gets put into the Academy in a holding position as an instructor where he gains his reputation as a "stack of books on legs" and seriously dates a "blonde technician" that Gary Mitchell throws his way to get Kirk off his back. Then, in September 2255, the brash young lieutenant gets his next assignment, the USS Farragut and Garrovick really does become his CO from the day he left the Academy.
Later that same year the Farragut visits Neural and Kirk makes his first planetary survey and meets Tyree. He serves under Garrovick for two years, until the latter is killed by the dikironium vampire in 2257.
That also means he was still on Farragut during the Klingon War of 2256-2257. It's reasonable to think the ship may have seen some action during this period, which could go some way to explaining Kirk's general antipathy towards Klingons in TOS even before he held them responsible for David Marcus' death.
If my hypothesis is correct, then Kirk really was a wunderkind. Early entry into the Academy at 17, a quick promotion to LT by the time he was 22, then battle-tested both in the Klingon War and in a fight that killed his captain. As a teenager younger than most of his peers in the Academy, he would have more likely thrown himself into his studies than socialized much (although he did get involved with Ruth at some point then - TOS: "Shore Leave").
This version of events would explain his reputation as a nerd, why he was an easy target for an upperclassman like Finnegan (TOS: "Shore Leave", again) and how it gave rise to his general sense of loneliness and isolation as a commander (TOS: "Balance of Terror" and "The Ultimate Computer", to give two examples) and of course his sense of responsibility and guilt tempered by the Finney incident and the death of Garrovick.
Kirk's quick promotion ahead of his peers also fits with and gives an added layer to the conversation between McCoy and Kirk in TOS: "The Corbormite Maneuver":
MCCOY: I'm especially worried about Bailey. Navigator's position's rough enough for a seasoned man.
KIRK: I think he'll cut it.
MCCOY: Oh? How so sure? Because you spotted something you liked in him, something familiar, like yourself say about, oh, 11 years ago?
BAILEY [OC]: On the double, deck five! Give me a green light.
KIRK: Why, Doctor, you've been reading your textbooks again?
MCCOY: I don't need textbooks to know you could've promoted him too fast. Listen to that voice.
"The Corbormite Maneuver" takes place in 2266, and 11 years puts McCoy’s reference to 2255, which tallies with Kirk's time as a LT. McCoy would know how fast Kirk got promoted, which is why McCoy is accusing Kirk of overpromoting Bailey just because he reminds Kirk of himself.
As an added note, in TOS: “Court Martial” when Kirk goes to the Starbase 11 bar and meets with some unfriendly members of his graduating class, at least two of them look older than Kirk which might also support the early entry hypothesis.
I know that none of this was intended by the production team, but sometimes I marvel how with a little imagination, it can all fit together so nicely and lend insight into previous episodes.
(Sadly, this analysis removes my previous hypothesis that Kirk and Tilly were from the same graduating class.)
Thanks for sticking with this, and any questions are welcome.