Doomsday Machine not best of TOS

[Jeri]

For some reason in my acquaintances, the fans who have this episode as their favorite are guys. Personally, Doomsday is probably my least favorite episode. I would gladly watch Spock's Brain instead -- or not-so-gladly Children Shall Lead, but I would still rather than Doomsday. I could murder Decker myself. I hate him; he's not in the least sympathetic; I can't stand to be put through watching him go down his wrongheaded path.

 

[Franklin]

Because you can't just relieve someone of command because they do something you don't approve of. The moment Decker refused to veer off he was suicidally putting the ship and crew in material danger and Spock would have grounds to relieve him, but Spock's threat got him to acquiesce.

That Bones never bothers to tell Spock he found Decker in a state of shock is the bigger WTF for me.

Well, that's true. Spock can't relieve him just because he doesn't like the idea. But Spock knows it's futile because the machine is invulnerable to a ship's phasers at any range, and could certainly prove that point to the Commodore without them having to try it. The argument would be that a commander less emotionally attached to the mission would realize Spock is right and go to a fall-back position. At least Kirk's more "hair-brained" ideas would have a 4.5% or so chance of success, according to Spock, and he learned to trust Kirk's instinct over time. But in this case, should a first officer allow a captain to try something he knows has an indisputable 0.0% percent chance of working and about a 99.5% percent chance of destroying the ship? That is suicidal behavior. That is irrational. That is the decision of someone unfit for command.

Kirk certainly had no respect for Decker in command, calling him the lunatic who almost destroyed his ship and ordering Spock to assume command only because they actually tried what Spock knew was impossible in the first place and should've prevented.

You're right about McCoy. He could've claimed that in his medical opinion, Decker was hyped up on a stimulant that affected his judgement. Decker would protest that wasn't the case, but McCoy could say the only way to know for sure is for Decker to submit to an examination. Then, they have him by regulations.

Edited to add: Jeri, I agree with your post 100 percent. Decker is a tragic character, but it's hard to have any sympathy for him. However, I'll still watch the episode over "Spock's Brain" or "The Children Shall Lead".

 

[Maurice]

Naval regulations make it NOT easy to relieve someone of command. It's actually VERY difficult for a subordinate to do so. As I said, merely having no chance of success isn't sufficient grounds for it. So long as the Enterprise could run away (they said they could outrun it) Spock couldn't under regs do anything. The moment Decker chose to stay when the ship was in serious danger of destruction with no hope of stopping the thing, Spock jumped on him because at that point he crossed the line.

 

[Kor]

^ I could be remembering wrong, but I think real-world naval regulations make it hard for a commanding officer of one ship to take command of a different ship in the first place the way Decker did, regardless of his rank.

Kor

 

[Ithekro]

Senior Line offficer onboard would be Decker.

 

[Shawnster]

Commodore Decker. It wasn't like one Captain was replacing another. More like an Admiral assuming command.

Ego... Hubris... not always logical.

 

[Ithekro]

He was commanding officer of USS Constellation. There is not word of there being an actaul Captain under him in charge of the ship, it was Decker's ship.

Unlike a decade and a half later with Admiral Kirk taking command of Enterprise over Captain Spock for the mission to Regula One. Also unlike Admiral Kirk coming on Enterprise and voulunteering to have his rank reduced to Captain while bumping Captain Decker down to Commander for the V'jer Incident. Commodore Decker was in command of his own ship.

 

[Maurice]

Obviously Starfleet regs aren't naval regs. I was making the point that in the USN a subordinate would have a helluva time relieving the commanding officer if said commander was in charge in a valid manner. Spock knew he had no grounds under Starfleet regs to relieve Decker until Decker's orders were suicidal. One could argue that he could have let Decker's order stand and THEN relieved him for crossing the line, but that's not the way Spock operates.

 

[Shawnster]

Oh I agree. Commodore Decker was captain of the Constellation. However, he was possibly the equivalent of a flag officer, he outranked Kirk, and he was on the Enterprise when her captain was absent.

It may not be logical for him to assume command, but I can see where the man's ego allowed him to throw that weight around, especially since he was obsessed with destroying that whale, er... machine.

 

[J.T.B.]

^ I could be remembering wrong, but I think real-world naval regulations make it hard for a commanding officer of one ship to take command of a different ship in the first place the way Decker did, regardless of his rank.

You're right, command of a ship is succeeded to through its chain of assigned line officers. A captain of one ship can't take command of another. (However, if two ships meet up and operate together without an officer aboard higher than their COs, the senior captain will hoist the green and white pennant Senior Officer Present Afloat and can give orders to the other captain).

The rules (US, at least) are different for flag officers. A flag officer who is qualified for command at see can give orders to the CO of any naval vessel, even if the he/she is only aboard as a passenger, if there is no senior flag officer present. This makes perfect sense: If something goes bad, you would want the most experienced officer to take charge, and flag officers eligible to command at sea all (except maybe a few aviation officers) commanded ships earlier in their career.

Oh I agree. Commodore Decker was captain of the Constellation. However, he was possibly the equivalent of a flag officer, he outranked Kirk, and he was on the Enterprise when her captain was absent.

Starfleet commodores are flag officers, that is confirmed in "The Deadly Years."

Of course these kinds of things are set aside for dramatic license. Objectively, if you have a big Starfleet doing great things all over the place, it must have very professional, qualified and effective leaders. But the ones we meet have to be foils to Kirk and Co, so they are petty, corrupt, ineffective, broken etc. If the senior officer just took charge and set everything right, like you would expect would really happen, well, where's the fun in that?

 

[HarryM]

I guess it's a weakness of the story that by letting Decker take command, Spock is made to appear weak, you can't have Spock get injured as it would difficult to have him take command again. If McCoy had gone to sickbay with Decker as he should have in time of red alert instead of running to the bridge to (presumably) badger Spock, then maybe Decker taking over could have been avoided. So it's all McCoy's fault.

 

[Timo]

Now that boils down to whether Decker was still "crazy enough" when assuming command of Kirk's ship. That he had been in shock previously should make no difference: no doubt he had also been drunk previously, or in love previously, or asleep previously - but not at the moment when Spock wished him ousted!

Sure, McCoy is an expert in space psychology. But determining that Decker was off kilter and, say, Kirk was not would probably be pretty damned difficult to do. And McCoy never ever attempted it with Kirk on that skipper's off days... He could talk to Kirk about fatigue and taking it easy and thinking it through, but when push came to shove, he just plain didn't declare Kirk medically unfit or even attempt to establish an expert opinion on the matter.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Marsden]

It feels strange to say after this discussion but I never saw a problem with Decker assuming command because of his high rank.

Spock was not the assigned captain of the ship and if Kirk was on board he would not have let it happen. To me it doesn't make Spock seem weak but very by the book. Kirk is the one that wasn't too hung up on this regulation unless Star Fleet really has a rule about "personal authority as captain" and even then Spock concedes that Decker can file charges against them later if he wants and they're still alive to do so.

Spock is not the captain and he made it clear he wishes to continue as Science officer, so it makes sense a Commodore might push him around, but not because of Spock's weakness but of the Commodores' (Decker and Stocker) overstepping of their authority.

 

[Ithekro]

Decker was a flag officer of the line and commanding officer of USS Constellation. Captain Kirk was out of communication on Constellation during the attack. Commodore Decker took command of Enterprise as the senior line officer onboard. Commander Spock, while being the ship's XO is a science officer. The Next line officer would probably be Sulu. After Kirk is able to regain communications with Enterprise and finds out that Decker is endangering his ship, it is able to assume indirect command of his vessel and order Decker off his bridge and that Spock take over until Kirk can get back over.

 

[J.T.B.]

Commander Spock, while being the ship's XO is a science officer. The Next line officer would probably be Sulu.

Spock is clearly a line officer, otherwise he would not be assigned as first officer or succeed to command as he did in "The Tholian Web." Scotty is a line officer as well, as McCoy mentions in "A Taste of Armageddon."

 

[Timo]

...And, FWIW, Spock wore gold and Sulu wore blue in the second pilot. So double or triple competency would appear to be common in Starfleet, and "apparent staff officers" in fact have line qualifications they simply choose not to flaunt.

Whether McCoy might secretly be a line officer, too, the story doesn't tell. Several books and comics put him in temporary command of the starship, usually as a joke of sorts by Kirk, but this doesn't quite happen on screen. (Doctors Crusher and Bashir do get command assignments in canon, though.)

There should be no major problems with the Chief Science Officer or Chief Engineering Officer being line; they might not have time for command duties all that often, but they would have underlings to cover for them if need be, and at the very least they might switch jobs as their careers progressed. Allowing the one man or woman who can declare anybody up to the skipper medically unfit for duty to also be in line for the patient's job would be problematic, though.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hatshepsut]

There should be no major problems with the Chief Science Officer or Chief Engineering Officer being line; they might not have time for command duties all that often...

...which is precisely why having the Science and Engineering Officers as 2nd and 3rd in line is a big problem. I'm not a seaman or mariner, but I doubt they ever do that on real ships. Charles Darwin, the "Chief Science Officer" on the Beagle, wasn't in that ship's chain of operational command on its 5-year voyage. (Though he dined with Captain FitzRoy and enjoyed considerable pull regarding ports of call, etc....)

But then, who would want Star Trek cluttered with the first mates, second mates, and warrant officers likely to be involved in command functions? Mr. Spock was "funner."

 

[Ithekro]

A bunch of the key people on the production staff were Army Air Corps, rather than Navy.

 

[Timo]

...which is precisely why having the Science and Engineering Officers as 2nd and 3rd in line is a big problem.

Yup. But this doesn't mean them having line qualifications would be a negative thing. Scotty could be just "growing interest" down there at engineering, before moving on to become the top officer of this or some other ship. And Spock pulls double duty because he's superhuman: his Vulcan side can handle the CSO work while his human side does the XO schtick.

The unrealistic bit is dragging Scotty up to the bridge to handle a crisis where Kirk and Spock are absent; that's where Sulu (or some other senior Lieutenant, the ship had its share of those*) should step in.

Timo Saloniemi

*) The ship also had red- and goldshirted Lieutenant Commanders or even Commanders who never performed command duties. But that was fine and well, as their jobs (Chief of Security, Records Officer) no doubt kept them busy with "non-line" work. Might be neither Finney nor Giotto was ever line.

 

[Ithekro]

The old novel about the Kobayashi Maru had Scotty as a line officer that more or less finished command school and was then transfered to Engineering School after his Kobayashi Maru test where he started beaming torpedoes into overlapping shields on the tight Klingon formations and throwning antimatter pods and eventually the Warp nacelles. as he was going to take as many of them out before it ended (he'd been on full reverse since contact and was well into Federation space by the end). He says he cheated since the overlaping shield trick only worked in computer simulation, not in real life, and he know that...because he came up with the proof at I think age 16. It even had his name on the document when the admirals looked it up.