Chain of Command revisited

Great!

*tales out pen and paper*
What are they?

 

I could answer in a funny and sarcastic way, but simply put, the way Starfleet works as we see it on screen. That's it.
People can complain they think it shouldn't work that way because 'real life'. Real life also doesn't have warpdrive, transporters and androids.

 

That really doesn't answer the question though...

Especially given the ongoing comments of "bad leadership" and citing real world examples, yet we can't use real world examples because Starfleet isn't real world. I am confused right now, genuinely.

 

The only way I can begin voicing my opinions on the matter, is a way that will start the entire 'is Starfleet a military or not' debate. And I really don't feel like another one of those.

 

Sad but true.

More's the pity.

 

Honestly, the worst problem with this ep for me isn't Jelico (and I'd already had enough of the writers using historical admirals' names), but the ludicrous idea of sending four senior officers on a possibly-suicidal commando mission (especially Bev!), when it would have been more sensible to brief an actual commando squad on the mission needs.

 

They had to somehow get Picard tortured by the Cardassians, so I"ll forgive that bit; considering every away mission is always the XO, and the next 3 or 4 ranking officers on the ship (and sometimes a couple of redshirts for dramatic effect).

 

Come to think of iit, the backgrounds to establish both story arcs are pretty shaky.

A :'We want Picard to be tortured by the Cardassians, but for that he has to be captured on their territory first. How do we get him there? Well, let's make him one of the few specialists on theta carrier waves. Never mind in the Federation at large there must be dozens of 30 y.o. specialists in top physical condition to establish a team fit for every relevant aspect of this mission: infiltration, science, Cardassian defensive structures, and so on.
B: 'We want conflict between Jellico and Riker but the TNG crew is the finest in Starfleet so let's make Jellico as unreasonable in his expectations as we can'.

 

Indeed, yes. It goes far and above the usual "away team logic" of the four senior officers. This is obviously a special operations mission, and demands special operators to actually do it. Worf is the only one remotely qualified. TNG did this far better with Troi or LaForge getting captured enroute to a conference. Hell, even JAG did it better were Commander Rabb was captured by the Chinese due to interest in data surrounding his recommendations in a South China Sea dispute were he was on vacation in Australia, and out on a sailboat and it got collided with by a Chinese ship, made to look like an accident, and captured him in the process.

Yes. Both are profoundly based in the dramatic sense of the idea, rather than plausibility.

 

Only three officers (Picard, Worf and Crusher) were involved in the actual mission, though I suppose Jellico could count as a fourth?

 

I have two part response to this... yes, I always thought it was a bit odd that THOSE SPECIFIC people had to go. I actually think Crusher was the most reasonable, given she was apparently the expert on -insert treknobabble thing-. Worf... sure he's Worf so whatever. Picard made absolutely no sense, almost to like, conspiracy theory-level doesn't make sense. Like Necheyev was trying to get Picard killed.

The second part... I don't think Starfleet was supposed to HAVE "commando squads" at this time. TNG stays pretty consistent with trying to establish that Starfleet isn't military. It's kind of an important part of this episode... a complaint I hear often is "yadda yadda Jellico was a proper military commander" and yeah, maybe he was... which was jarring to the non-military Enterprise crew.

I think Trek has remained fairly consistent on this actually, that Starfleet... isn't really a military. It's military-ish. I don't think they have any sort of dedicate ground force. Even in the Dominion War, it by and large seems like regular old ship crews are also the ground troops. It's easier for them to go more military with their ships, but they don't really have a strong tradition or organization for ground stuff. And so... when it's a necessary thing, they grab whoever they can grab.

EDIT -

A thought on Picard's involvement, going with the idea that Starfleet doesn't actually HAVE a group to handle this... he was put on the mission just because he was present and he needed to be taken off the ship. Starfleet wanted Jellico to handle the situation. Having Picard remain on the Enterprise would have certainly caused even more issues, so... they needed a body for the ground mission and Picard needed to go somewhere.

 

I said "this goes far and away" from the typical TOS method of the 4 senior officers, typically, or 3 plus an expendable crewmember. It's taking what was kind of tropish in the original series and going above it by placing Picard in a highly specialized mission that seems outside his skill set.

I mean...it shouldn't. You have Jellico as the mission commander and Picard as the ship's captain.

 

IDK, I mean I totally agree that Starfleet didn't have conventional "combat arms" in normal circumstances, and even evidence of reserve or "National Guard" type units of that for use during war-time is limited, but there are plenty of examples of various "small unit tactics" forces outside of the military (even if we include the USCG as "military").

 

Right, but in that case you create some potential for conflict... we've seen occasions before where a situation like this happened, the person in charge of the mission wants one thing, but the Captain of the ship wants something else. The situation was described as being absolutely dire... there was no room for second guessing.

So Starfleet decided that they wanted Jellico to handle the situation, and they probably also knew that Picard might well pull a Picard and try to prevent Jellico from doing military things. So... Jellico got the ship temporarily.

Starfleet probably ALSO knew the crew would not like this. With Picard still on the ship, it's almost the same issue. The crews loyalty was to Picard, his very presence would have complicated the matter... ESPECIALLY because Jellico was so utterly incompetent at leadership.

Not really in Star Trek though. We know that some Starfleet officers get "Advanced Tactical" training, but they are otherwise Starfleet officers with a "day job". We have never actually seen evidence of any sort of dedicated combat forces in Star Trek*. The closest we came was the Dominion War, and even then the people we learn more about are just normal Starfleet officers repurposed for a ground role.

*We see what is apparently a Black Ops group or some such in SNW in the flashback to the Klingon War, although they may also have just been repurposed Starfleet officers.

Starfleet has "combat arms"... they call them "Security".

I wouldn't doubt that there are some more specially trained groups out there who could function as commando's or what not if needed... in this context though, they may simply have not been in range.

 

But, that also speaks to the unprofessional nature of the crew. We're loyal to our captain so we refuse to respond to any directives? Like, I've been in similar situations but almost always that loyalty created misguided change blindness to the point that resistance was counterproductive.

Honestly, I think the story is better served by having Picard there, with his own loyalty to the crew. You can have Worf and Riker leader the commando team if you need that personal hook. Then Picard and Jellico have to actually work together to make it happen, rather than just brow beat their point of view in to the other.

 

Well, we know Starfleet is not a military, just an scientific organization dedicated to exploration. They just happen to have some defense tasks, too.

We also know the Federation doesn't use money - they just happen to use 'credits' (mentioned in some instances).

Perhaps it's only fair to treat the Cardassians in the same way. Did they torture Picard? No, they simply applied 'intensified persuasion techniques'.

 

That's taking it a bit overly simplistic.

No, it's not that "we're loyal to our captain so we refuse to respond to anything", it's "we're loyal to our captain because he earned our trust, and now some random asshole came in barking orders that appear to be completely unnecessary and done mostly to stroke an ego".

It could also work, but I think the general story of "crew doesn't trust the new captain, is resistant" is hurt by Picard being there because it would likely turn into "crew doesn't trust mission commander, turns to captain for guidance" and now it's mostly just Picard questioning Jellico.

 

Having seen it in real life I can assure you the reactions often are that simplistic.

Which is fine because that's a good source of drama. At some point in time the drama needs to be condensed in order to satisfy the run time. So, Picard squaring against Jellico can be as dramatic and intense, especially if Jellico ends up having a point, even if we disagree with him.

Riker, for whatever point he as, comes across as petty and Jellico slinks to him and begs for his help and I'm supposed to applaud this? Um, no.

 

I've seen it too... too many times actually. If the reaction is that simplistic, the new leader is a horrible leader.

 

I would strongly disagree, depending on the context. Sorry, the new leader might have struggles, but the "old way or no way" attitude that I saw was unprofessional.