Retro Review: Valiant
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Sisko may be the only one who could get them to do that. All others would simply be outnumbered.
Nog, for example, may have been entitled to take command, but he didn't dare do so. Partly because of his admiration for Red Squad, but mostly because there was no one to back him up.
Seniority of rank is useless to Nog if he can't HOLD onto command once he tries to take it. Everybody else on the ship would support Watters, of course, and they'd quickly remove Nog if he tried anything.
This is exactly why I have a love/hate relationship with the episode. All their nasty little attitudes just make me laugh and remind me of the year I spent in a military school where high school kids with fake rank gave orders with their noses up in the air like their shit didn't stink. I just wish the Red Squad crew had survived so they could get dressed down by an actual, respectable starship captain.
Watters and his XO were such inept leaders (this is largely due to youth and lack of experience really, which is part of what makes the ending tragic) that they brigged Jake for speaking his mind. They also lack actual people skills as shown by their attitudes regarding homesickness and actual feelings.
I'm kind of indifferent to Jake most of the time, but I liked the unapologetic stink eye he gave to Watters in this one.
The idea was that the cadets would all be fooled by the explosion. In order to accomplish that, it had to be an enormous one.
And in a real military Sisko would have been court martialed as a war criminal for using biological weapons on a civilian colony. So I'm going to assume the regular rules might not apply.
Depends on how binding a dying captain giving a battlefield commission is and if a regularly achieved lesser rank trumps it.
Considering that in Barclay's introduction episode I believe Wesley Crusher was given authority over officers in engineering despite his rank being given too him by Picard.
And yet starships have probably done things like that, I mean Picard was willing to do exploratory stuff on the way back to federation space after Q tossed them out there. Not to mention in Kirk and Archer's eras communications probably weren't that reliable so they probably spend a decent amount of time on their own.
Only in an emergency though, like when the bridge is falling apart and most everybody is dead or grievously wounded.
^ That wasn't the case with either of those characters I mentioned.
Scotty, of course, is an experienced commander. He is explicitly said to be in the normal chain of command - he's third in line, after Kirk and Spock. We saw Scotty take the bridge dozens of times in TOS. He could have made a fine career out of being a captain if he had wanted. He just happened to choose engineering.
And Geordi, as we know from Timeless, grew to be an experienced captain as well. They don't give Galaxy-class ships to just anybody, you know.
Also, let's not forget that SISKO was an engineer as well.
Scotty, of course, is an experienced commander. He is explicitly said to be in the normal chain of command - he's third in line, after Kirk and Spock. We saw Scotty take the bridge dozens of times in TOS. He could have made a fine career out of being a captain if he had wanted. He just happened to choose engineering.
And Geordi, as we know from Timeless, grew to be an experienced captain as well. They don't give Galaxy-class ships to just anybody, you know.
Also, let's not forget that SISKO was an engineer as well.
I totally agree with this comparison and in that, it was good to see them get smacked down.
The episode demonstrates perfectly why its not a good idea to give real authority or life/death decision-making responsibility to anyone under about 27 years old. 99% of people under 27 (and probably about 75% over, sad to say) just aren't mature enough to handle the burden of command.
I thought that it made for an interesting episode but I was screaming at the crew (in my head) for most of the episode to just get out of there and go home, at the very least after they got the data they needed on the Dominion battleship to bring back. Watters, however, was clearly after "fortune and glory" and it got him and almost all of the rest of the crew killed. They should've listened to Jake but since he wasn't Starfleet, they clearly didn't care what he thought or had to say and Nog, unfortunately, was clearly infatuated with Red Squad that he couldn't see the forest for the trees until the last second. If I were Jake, it probably would've been hard for me to be friends with Nog after something like that.
Not really we've had starship captains older than 27 who just as big toolish glory hounds. In fact they outnumber Watters by virtue there being more of them.
Reread what I wrote (and you quoted) about the 75% of people older than 27 not being mature enough to handle the rigors of command. You actually agree with me.
Who says it's an issue of maturity, and not cases of ego, greed, and too much ambition. Or just plain insanity.
I might argue that the inability to suppress ego, greed, ambition etc. can be signs or aspects of immaturity. I'm not interested in quibbling over the exact meaning of words. I think you know what I meant and I think you agree with me.
"The arrogance of the young" could have been the subtitle..
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