TNG Rewatch: 5x01: "Redempton Part 2"

[Edward Jellico]

Sorry for the necromancy but a question has arisen that concerns this episode.

I think that the writers of this story missed a trick. I can understand that Chris Hobson would be annoyed that an android has been made captain of the Sutherland but surely he should be even more annoyed by the fact that the someone from the Operations track, who is the same rank as him has been promoted above him?

In his shoes I would be more annoyed by this.

 

[Trekker4747]

It was a field commission and a temporary assignment from the captain of the Federation's most important ship on a mission he was leading. Data wasn't "promoted" over Commander Jackass he was just placed-there due to the circumstances at hand.

 

[Mojochi]

Data is the 2nd officer aboard the Enterprise. He may hold an operations position on board, but he is clearly command track, & has 22 years experience. I always just imagined he was more qualified. If you'll recall, the ship is manned but for the captain. It stands to reason that if there's an availability, then no one is qualified to hold the position of captain. This isn't a promotion we're talking about, to the rank of captain. It's a job availability to command the ship, for which Data must be qualified, & Hobson isn't

 

[Trekker4747]

And the ship was still under repairs/construction so it wasn't even currently commissioned.

 

[Timo]

Which makes it a bit mysterious that there would be a crew readily available. Yes, any officer might be placed in command without needing the full four pips, if all you have is this limited pool of officers. But how do you get more crew out of a limited pool of crew? If the regular skipper was on leave or other assignment because of the repairs and hence unavailable on short notice, wouldn't much of the crew be, too?

(FWIW, ships today aren't decommissioned for the duration of repairs. But earlier on, they indeed were, which makes sense considering how long major maintenance might have taken in the days of primitive tooling...)

I have little doubt that Data could have been senior to Hobson. In service years, this is certainly possible - if humans normally reach Ensign at 22 or so, Hobson would have to be 44 or more to beat Data, and the actor was 38 at the time. As for years-at-rank, Data supposedly didn't make rapid career progress, so his two-and-a-half pips might be newer than Hobson's. Whether Data would be more experienced or more qualified... Well, he supposedly didn't have the opportunity for great adventures before Picard took him under his wing, so experience might be lacking (and experience in command duties is specifically suggested to be lacking). But the Sutherland and the Enterprise are rather similar ships in design, which might amount to something.

..he might not value the crew as much in the same way as a human..

And Hobson might be a misogynist, or a nepotist (his all-male bridge crew actually consists of the brothers of the actor!), not valuing all of his crew in equal terms. I trust Starfleet can cope with less-than-caring or potentially "racially biased" officers the way militaries today do.

So would you want your safety to be a fraction of someone's thoughts?

That depends on absolutes more than on relatives. Is Data's fraction less or more than Hobson's full attention? I'd bet more...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

Picard wanted those ships out to the Romulan-Klingon border even if they were not ready. Sutherland I think was one of, it not the last one out of the yard and was still having serious engineering issues.

Was the ship in the yard for repairs, or was it brand new? I seem to recall the ship's dedication plate is only 200 stardates before the episode starts (she would have been commissioned a day or so before the start of the episode "The Host"). Maybe she didn't have a captain yet as they were still fitting her out. Captain Picard didn't come onboard Enterprise until I guess 300 or 400 stardates after she was commissioned.

 

[Timo]

Was the ship in the yard for repairs, or was it brand new?

Well, that's the question. Dedication plaque commissioning dates might get "refreshed" every time the ship gets temporarily decommissioned for major repairs or refit, but while that would explain a great many oddities about dedication plaque stardates, it'd be a bit odd in its own right.

The Sutherland has problems with "untested" systems, but we don't learn if those were originally under repair or just freshly installed. She's of a design at least as old as the E-D herself, and possibly older judging by some Nebulas having lower registries than the lowest known Galaxy ones (including USS Galaxy herself). But the design might well remain in production, and individual ships might get launched a tad later than their registry number would suggest, for various reasons.

I'd go for "brand new, but plagued by teething troubles". She would supposedly have sailed from her original construction dock to this hot-spot starbase under her own power - one would expect a repair base at the frontier, not a construction base. Perhaps the deployment run showed that the ship needed a lot more work, and the crew was given leave until the problems could be worked out.

Is Data commanding from a secondary bridge, perhaps, the primary still being out of commission?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Marsden]

It was a field commission and a temporary assignment from the captain of the Federation's most important ship on a mission he was leading. Data wasn't "promoted" over Commander Jackass he was just placed-there due to the circumstances at hand.

Why are you calling him a Jackass? Maybe he didn't want a "puppet" to be his commanding officer.

 

[Mojochi]

It was a field commission and a temporary assignment from the captain of the Federation's most important ship on a mission he was leading. Data wasn't "promoted" over Commander Jackass he was just placed-there due to the circumstances at hand.

Why are you calling him a Jackass? Maybe he didn't want a "puppet" to be his commanding officer.

By this point, Data had nearly executed the guy who'd kidnapped him, was the key innovator in saving everyone's ass from the Borg, & developed a new android from his design. Puppet? Give me a break. I actually think Data is a better captain than Riker

 

[Ithekro]

Sutherland's registry number is higher than Yamato's so it is a new ship relative to Enterprise. Be that four years or four months is anyone's guess, but going by the stardate I would guess Sutherland was commissioned about two or three months before the epiosde.

The Nebula-class is relatively new, so maybe Starfleet was making improvements since USS Phoenix and USS Bellerophon.

 

[Trekker4747]

Sutherland's registry number is higher than Yamato's so it is a new ship relative to Enterprise. Be that four years or four months is anyone's guess, but going by the stardate I would guess Sutherland was commissioned about two or three months before the epiosde.

The Nebula-class is relatively new, so maybe Starfleet was making improvements since USS Phoenix and USS Bellerophon.

This is assumes the registry numbers on the ships have anything to do with when a ship was built, commissioned or when the idea for the ship came along. There's no way to know if the registry numbers really mean anything.

 

[velour]

I liked this episode exploring someone not trusting an artificial lifeform in command. They kind of just gloss over it because Data is so loveable, but the guy was kind of right. And then Data proves himself to be a capable Captain, but the issue still stands that he might not value the crew as much in the same way as a human.

For instance when Data was dating he only devoted a fraction of his processing power to the girl, where as human is allocating considerable more of their thoughts towards that person. So would you want your safety to be a fraction of someone's thoughts? Interesting question.

Data's not like that. He can think about multiple, possibly a great number, of things at once and can dedicate his full attention to all of those things. Sure, maybe he can prioritize what gets more attention or if something more important gets maybe two processor cores, or whatever but on a basic level he can think about many things at once with the same level of attention.

The issue about Data was not so much about whether he can multitask or devote the proper amount of attention to the situation at hand. It went deeper than that.

I thought that Hobson's misgivings and distrust of Data's command ability were legitimate as well as warranted. Data is a machine.

Had there ever been a psychological evaluation of Data regarding command fitness? What are the values that is within him? How much does he value the lives of his fellow crew mates, if indeed he is really capable of having such feelings? The lives of many men were in Data's hands. Was a machine worthy of such responsibility?

I couldn't find fault with Hobson for his not trusting Data as well as his hostility to Data. His life and the lives of the rest of the crew was on the line.

As for the time Data dated Jenn, it wasn't so much about whether Data was capable of devoting enough time to her. You can program a robot to devote all its time to meeting the physical needs of a person. But that would be devoid of any emotional meaning.

Devotion of time does not equal love or caring. As Jenn said, she just didn't matter to Data. Apparently, Data wasn't capable of love. For Data, he was just going through the motions. Other than that, there is nothing there. No emotional attachment, no love.

Why should Hobson be expected to trust and happily accept a machine, that lacked such important qualities, to lead his crew into combat?

 

[Mojochi]

1. They weren't leading anyone into combat. It was a passive barricade
2. Data is 2nd in command on the most notable ship in the fleet. Whatever requirements are expected of someone to be in command he. has. met.
3. A relationship with a Human woman is not analogous to being in command. In fact, a certain amount of dispassion is actually necessary when in command. Personally, I'd have been far more likely to set Data up with a Vulcan than a Human
4. No one ever questions a Vulcan's ability to command. So how can you question an Android's ability to do so, based on an apparent lack of emotion?
5. Data shows concern for others all. the. time. What show are you people watching?

 

[The Old Mixer]

4. No one ever questions a Vulcan's ability to command.

*cough*GalileoSeven*cough*

 

[Mojochi]

anymore. lol

 

[Marsden]

It was a field commission and a temporary assignment from the captain of the Federation's most important ship on a mission he was leading. Data wasn't "promoted" over Commander Jackass he was just placed-there due to the circumstances at hand.

Why are you calling him a Jackass? Maybe he didn't want a "puppet" to be his commanding officer.

By this point, Data had nearly executed the guy who'd kidnapped him, was the key innovator in saving everyone's ass from the Borg, & developed a new android from his design. Puppet? Give me a break. I actually think Data is a better captain than Riker

I put puppet in quotes because that's what Trekker4744 called him for not whining about Jericho and serving as first officer, and did a good job of it, too. That's my point, it's ok to support Data in one thread but not another.

 

[Mojochi]

Sorry. That's what I get for not back reading. lol

That's a good point though. It's pretty unfair to support Data as a Captain in this episode, and not support him in his performance as XO in Chain of Command (Which is the episode I think you mean). His being an android wasn't a factor in either of those cases

I've always had this weird impression of Data that he only comes off inadequately when it's a personal matter, a girlfriend, a dance instructor, a losing strategema match, etc... When he faces adversity professionally, he always excels. The only time I even recall him struggling is in The Ensigns of Command. It's led me to the opinion that he has an inferiority complex, if he's given the personal space to let it out. When he's under the gun, he is exceptionally confident

 

[EnriqueH]

Couple of things about this episode:

1) It has probably one of my favorite pre-credits sequences of the series with Kurn and Worf being beaten to hell by a few Klingon warships and Kurn's inventive way of winning.

That's gotta be one of the most BADASS moments in the ENTIRE FRANCHISE.

I wish we had seen much more of Kurn, but I understand he's got one more apperance in DS9, so I'm looking forward to that because I haven't seen it yet. (No spoilers please!)

2) I understand the OP's frustration with not seeing Sela again, but as I mentioned some time ago, I think TPTB *tried* to make the character of Sela work, but realized the whole thing was a ginormous misfire and rightfully left her out of future shows. When I saw those Sela appearances again recently, they were pretty cheesy. I liked Tasha Yar, but Sela was too much of a mustache-twister to take seriously.

 

[Marsden]

Sorry. That's what I get for not back reading. lol

That's a good point though. It's pretty unfair to support Data as a Captain in this episode, and not support him in his performance as XO in Chain of Command (Which is the episode I think you mean). His being an android wasn't a factor in either of those cases

I've always had this weird impression of Data that he only comes off inadequately when it's a personal matter, a girlfriend, a dance instructor, a losing strategema match, etc... When he faces adversity professionally, he always excels. The only time I even recall him struggling is in The Ensigns of Command. It's led me to the opinion that he has an inferiority complex, if he's given the personal space to let it out. When he's under the gun, he is exceptionally confident

Yes, you are correct.

And I agree, once he sets on a course of action, he doesn't doubt. I would have liked to see him in command more often.

 

[Mojochi]

I quite enjoy his stint in Gambit. It's really the only interesting part of the episodes for me. The way he handles Worf is so skillful, that even Worf realizes what a jerk he's being. Then he actually recognizes the crew's need to take some action, and gets creative with the letter of the law on that Klingon smuggler. It's a splendid example of his ability to think abstractly

And then the endgame with Riker. I've given Riker a lot of crap over the years, but him, Picard & Data have a terrific command rapport. They just know how to lean on each other