Talk:Sarah April

First CMO on a warp starship?
She says she was the first chief medical officer aboard a starship equipped with warp drive. Obviously that conficts with dr Phlox. --Dalen 16:51, 16 Mar 2005 (EST)


 * How so? Are you suggesting that the  was the "starship equipped with warp drive"?  --  THOR 19:32, 16 Mar 2005 (EST)


 * Phlox isn't an officer and also the term starship was used in another meaning during TOS than it is used today -- Kobi - (   ) 02:19, 17 Mar 2005 (EST)

hmm I must have been confused when I wrote that. anyway her statement is probalby wrong. --Dalen 19:03, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Not to mention that the Animated Series is not even considered canon, as per the wishes of Gene Roddenberry himself as well as Paramount Pictures. Because of this, writers do not usually refer to the animated shows when creating new material, since those events never really "happened." --Shran 07:45, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * That declaration wasn't made until a good dozen years after TAS was created. Whatever the case, it's canon here. --Gvsualan 08:00, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I know, and I had already read the article regarding M/A's canoncy of the animated series. I was merely pointing out the fact that, because it's not considered canon by the producers, there are bound to be inconsistencies between the animated show and the live-action shows, and some details from the animated series (especially certain lines of dialogue) should be considered incorrect, and therefore, should not be considered "factual" or "canon." --Shran 09:20, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm sure that we can find a way to annotate the information presented here -- but its not necessarily a conflict between the continuities of TOS and TAS -- because TOS made the same mistake a few times -- during the 2260s, there were several times where the term "Starship" was used to refer to the -- only. This means that people of this era considered all ships before the Enterprise as "spaceships" (or perhaps there is a difference between "starship" and the proper noun "Starship Class" -- her plaque notes that she was "Starship Class" and kirk specifies that there are "only twelve like her in the fleet" -- this means that conversationally, the scriptwriters used the term "Starship" to only refer to those 12 or 13 vessels -- meaning that the Enterprise was the first Starship Class vessel equipped with warp drive in their point of view.


 * There's no reason we can't consider the comment "factual" or "canon" -- because TAS is a valid resource of factual, canon data on this site -- we simply need to determine what the scriptwirters "meant" when they wrote a line which, after my analysis, probably only seems contradictory to later TNG-era productions, where the proper noun "Starship" referring to Constitutions has fallen into disuse once there came to be more than one class of such a type of vessel, the general term "starship" is more commonly used for all interstellar capable vessels. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 14:10, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I'd like to see some of this summed up in a footnote at starship. Jaf 14:13, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)Jaf


 * The exact line was "As the first medical officer aboard a ship equipped with warp drive, I'm afraid I had to come up with new ideas all the time". That leaves some room for interpretation. Maybe she didn't mean "first Medical Officer" but "First Medical Officer" in the sense of "Chief Medical Officer". --James Cody 14:50, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * This makes infinitely more sense, doesnt it? Thanks, James! -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk


 * That makes sense, I guess. I'm not accepting it as canon (at least now right now), but you can. If that's your personal preference and if makes sense to you, by all means, go with it. Maybe one day, everyone will accept the animated series as canon. :) --Shran 08:07, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Even in the restricted context of TAS the line doesn't make sense. That would make her the CMO of the USS Bonaventure that was lost in the Delta Triangle.--GreatBear 06:32, 9 Jan 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure how you gather that. "As the first (a.k.a. chief) medical officer aboard a ship equipped with warp drive..." The line, as interpreted by James Cody, suggests she was the CMO of a ship equipped with warp drive, not the first ship equipped with warp drive. And I never thought I'd see the day when be backing up a line from the animated series... --From Andoria with Love 17:11, 9 Jan 2006 (UTC)


 * I "gather that" because I'm not using Mr. Cody's convoluted logic. I am accepting that April meant the first human ship with warp drive. Period. In the context of TAS and Trek as it existed at that time the "first...ship with warp drive" was stated by Scotty in TAS:The Time Trap to be the USS Bonaventure. I'm pointing out that not only has the rest of Trek not followed TAS, exposition in other episodes of TAS is not consistent. I think this is one of those things we have to let go....--GreatBear 05:39, 12 Jan 2006 (UTC)


 * Ahh, I see what you mean. Good catch. Hmmm... maybe the Bonaventure didn't have a medical officer? :P Of course, that doesn't explain all the previous ships with both warp drive and medical officers... yeah, I think there's a good reason Paramount doesn't consider this series to be canon. ;) --From Andoria with Love 06:39, 12 Jan 2006 (UTC)
 * You know, it just occurred to me that the lines would make sense if Sarah April had served as SS Bonaventure's first First Medical Officer before serving on the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701).


 * but the time period of this would depend on their "ship equipped with warp drive" being written off somehow -- if they had said "first ship equipped with to break the time barrier" in both cases, it would have made more sense, as it would confirm they are not a) the first ships with warp drive, or b) the first UFP/UESPA/Starfleet ships with warp drive -- but that they are c) in agreement with José Tyler's reference from that sometime before the  2250s (but after the SS Columbia crash in the 2230s) there was an upgrade in warp drive technologies (that allowed them to break "the time barrier") that changed the way people travel through space. Perhaps the "first ships equipped with warp drive" line was a jargon-type reference to the 2240s-era "first ships equipped with the new warp drive"


 * I love TAS too much to not try and explain it somehow. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk


 * Simple explanation: she's just batty. I'm not being facetious.  She carries around — not wears, but carries around — a flower for no reason whatsoever.     When faced with the possibility of death, she initially accepts it rather meekly, instead of fighting against it like you'd expect a doctor to do.  And it's revealing, to me at least, that Starfleet specifically renounces only Robert's mandatory retirment, not hers.  Sure, she could be younger than him, or out of Starfleet, and thus not subject to the rule.  Or she could have failed to make a petition for review of her status — which just seems weird.  What doctor do you know that would believe that once they hit a certain age their knowledge should be put out to pasture?  The answer that fits the facts best is that she's senile.   Czech Out   ☎ | ✍  00:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Y'know, it's funny that this line always comes up in arguments about which ship was the first ship with warp drive (ie. the Bonaventure vs. the Phoenix etc) when the line is "the first medical officer on a ship with warp drive" which to me means that it wasn't the first ship with warp drive, but rather she was the first Starfleet Medical Officer. I think the use of the word Officer is important here also, in that it is possible that previously the medical staff on space vessels were NOT Starfleet personnel, and indeed the only Doctor we know of before Sarah April was Phlox, who was clearly non-Starfleet, and indeed not an Officer in any kind of military sense, clearly a civilian Doctor, an example which perfectly fits the continuity being implied by Sarah's statement. In other words, the emphasis on first has to do with her position, and not the ship at all. She's simply making the "with warp drive" distinction because obviously she wasn't the first medical officer ever in the history of everything, rofl. 68.145.128.30 05:17, 6 March 2009 (UTC)