In Caretaker, Janeway makes the following speech: "As the only Star Fleet vessel ASSIGNED to the DQ we'll continue to follow our directive: to seek out new worlds and explore space" Is this a case of sloppy writing, or was Seven right in "The Voyager Conspiracy"
The classic mistake of conspiracy theorists: "Don't ascribe to malice that which can be blamed on incompetence or a weird sense of humor". Timo Saloniemi
It was a slip of the tongue. Understand? In fact, maybe you had better decide you didn't hear anything at all. Or are you bucking for an "accidental" assignment to the Delta Quadrant yourself?
I assumed she assigned herself. She probably had to do a lot of things herself. Janeway was after all the highest ranking Starfleet Officer in the Quadrant, (even if Ransom probably had 10 years seniority on her if this really was Kathy's first command, but if they want to say that the title of "Fleet Captain" goes to the person with the toughest ship, so be it, when honestly it should be the captain with the highest senoirity gets to pick which ship is theirs.) so really, unless there was a mutiny, she had the default command authority of the entire admiralty that she could have rewritten the Starfleet Charter if it so benefited her, and maybe she did if we want to talk about those provisional rank badges she was handing out to the Maquis as "make believe authority" actual Starfleet Officers who had earned their positions had to submit to. Though I still think it's off that there wasn't a civilian authority aboard Voyager to operate in tandem or oversight, if Voyager really was a federation Colony then it required Federation representation since it's a little draconian and even monarchistic to say that Janeway would be in command forever when really as seven proved, no one needed rank, comission or an enlistment to go about the job of keeping the ship in order.
Loathe though I am to defend anything that Janeway did, I have to point out that most militaries and even civilian law enforcement agencies have contingencies in their rules that allow for regular civilians to be given temporary, provisional, or, in some cases, even permanent commissions, ranks, and duties. I didn't find her doing that with the Maquis to be all that unusual, especially the ones who had inactive Starfleet commissions anyway, like Chakotay. And I think a civilian authority aboard ship would have been interesting for an episode or two, then dull and annoying if focused on much beyond that. Not to mention that it would have added to comparisons already being made if Commander Adama ... er ... Captain Janeway had had to deal with her own Council of Elders or something similar.
Random musings: But that in turn would go badly against the idea that the command of a ship cannot be wrestled from her appointed CO except by exceptional measures and highest authority intervention. So if one wants to follow the sensible idea of letting the cruiser commander decide what's good for the corvette commander, and the sensible idea that one cannot be removed from command of one's ship by peer pressure alone, then Starfleet's got it right. Timo Saloniemi
So I wanted to see a campaign of dirty tricks and sandbagging and slime flinging between Neelix and Seska to get a seat in office? was that too much to ask? O, I'm all for field promotions. Janeway needed crew and a hierarchy. Can't run a ship without a pecking order. I just think that the maquis should have been given pips and real ranks and real commissions. It was degrading and patronizing to think that everything they achieved was transitory and that if the lowest ensign chose to raise a stink, that ensign still outranked any Maquis even if they had the provisional rank badge of Captain, because pips are real and rank badges are not... Then of course there's how Kathy turned the Equinox 5 into slaves for some undefined period rather than commit them to a sentence equal to the horror of their crimes. This is exactly the same as when/if Naomi finally says "I don't have to do what you tell me because you're not my real mother!" Captain Chakotay in the before and After timeline handed out pips and ended any strife between the starbelly sneetches and sneetches with star on thars creating a crew of true equals and not some hastily dilute wallpaper pasted schism.
Well, the Maquis hadn't done anything to earn their pips yet when the two-tier system was put in use. They were unlawful combatants from the wrong side of the front lines and all - that they even got to touch the important buttons was a major gesture of trust from Janeway, who fully intended to drag these people to the well-guarded rehabilitation colonies where a session or two in the Tantalus Chair would turn them into good citizens again. The time for a pip system revamp might have come some time after they got rid of Seska for good. "Basics II" would have been a good moment for that - or, rather, the episode following that season-straddler should have included these important developments in the teaser... Timo Saloniemi
But if Ransom had been an Admiral, or even a commodore or a fleet captain, he would have been in charge? Especially if Equinox had had to be scuttled because it was so frakked up, that Rudy would have assumed command of Voyager and Janeway would then become his XO and everyone else would get bumped down a couple places till Kim was just an Able crewman or maybe even a third year Cadet. When it comes to Captain vs Captain it really is a pickle and this seniority ditty I am preaching comes from the episode of Hogans Heroes where Crittenworth supplants Hogan as head prisoner because Crittenworth had been a Colonel for 10 years longer than Hogan. Clink was over the moon. Though you have to remember that it's not Janeways ship. The federation just lets her use it because it seems like a good idea.
I must be slower than usual today. I know she's a fan of Paris flavoured lizards, but this I don't get.
I would love to be assigned to Astromertrics, if you could get me assigned with Seven it woud be much appriciated, thanks for thinking of my desire to be on the first ship to the DQ...
She's pretty, firm bosoms, and marvelous unmoving hair, but there's nothing behind the eyes.You might as well be dating a one year old for all the character shes got left after being vivisected by the Borg continuously for 20 years. I'd like to be assigned kitchen chores, so that standing beside Neelix all day long I will seem to others less furry, less round, less obtuse, less verbally diahretic and just generally downright sexier to everyone than i would without such a passionately flawed wingman.
In charge, yes. Taking command of Janeway's ship, no. We see how this works in "Doomsday Machine": Decker is a senior officer who has the Starfleet authority to tell his juniors what to do, and he's currently without a ship of his own so he uses the Enterprise. He doesn't take command of the Enterprise away from her appointed CO (in this case, Commander Spock), though. At most, he threatens Spock that he will do that if Spock fails to make the Enterprise do what Decker wishes. Decker is in command of the mission, but the ship is still Spock's. Decker gained command by holding higher rank, a Starfleet way of telling everybody that he's qualified to command those of lower rank - and probably also by holding some sort of a generally commanding position, as Commodore is a flag rank and would tend to indicate that Decker is in command of a formation of ships (or qualified to do that) rather than just one. By the direct "DDM" precedent, that wouldn't quite happen: Ransom would call the shots, but Janeway would still have the ship, and could veto Ransom's orders on basis of them not being good for the ship. Or, if Janeway left the ship for a while and put Ensign Kim in command, Kim could veto Ransom's orders on the same basis. Being CO to a ship is something of a special case: when you get that, you can tell higher-ranked people to bugger off when it comes to ship matters. It takes very high brass to be able to countermand one's appointment to the CO position, if the person/organization who originally did the appointing isn't available to reverse the decision, or refuses to do so. The Captain vs. Captain situation is another case where it's a good idea to create a special rule. Such a thing wouldn't generally come to play except in two rare scenarios, after all: two ships meet, the Captains are in disagreement about joint action; or one ship has to accommodate two Captains. In the former case, this special rule would come to play (unless the Captains already had orders that precluded joint action in the first place). In the latter case, the skipper who had lost his own ship would have to settle for being a passenger aboard the other skipper's ride, but seniority would allow him or her to call the shots to a certain degree (unless the CO vetoed). If Ransom had been under orders to deliver cigars to Starbase 3 and Janeway under orders to stop the Bugomite invasion at any cost, then this whole "joint mission" business would have to be sorted out first before the power games could be played. Does Starfleet have a system where certain missions override others without the need to clear this with the superiors who originally gave the missions? That, too, is pretty common military practice. Timo Saloniemi
That might explain why Nog didn't take command of the Valiant since he was a real Ensign at the time, but the little Ferengi was kowtowing to redsqad cadets playing dress up, because it would be pretty sad if he was just being head over heals bromantic.
Agreed I think Nog outranked everyone's ass but he couldn't replace the Captain of the Valiant as he was given that position by the dead Captain.