Starfleet would have been faced with difficulties in pointing out the success of Enterprise's five-year mission while spinning the departure of James T. Kirk even if they had been fools enough to reject Gryphon's offer. Enterprise without Kirk in Starfleet is a hollow shell for purposes of public relations, particularly since it's the most successful Constitution-class ship, and still had roughly 20% of its crew die. "We don't have the man who could teach you how to get through all that, but we have his mission logs," won't exactly be reassuring, no matter how good a face they put on it.

Peter Eng
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