Who is the better captain Picard or Jellico

Wishful thinking.

 

Point is, he’s not on a Nebula or Ambassador or a lot of other ships.

As opposed to what — not?

Again, as opposed to what? And further, he wouldn’t have had to if he didn’t create the situation he found himself in in the first place. He’s not incompetent, but he leaves a lot to be desired.

It’s a Galaxy Class starship and the Federation flagship. It’s also the command ship in the sector if there’s a Cardassian invasion of Minos Korva.

The Dominion was the brushfire. INS was more lighthearted. Next in NEM, Janeway teases Picard about all the easy assignments he gets, dealing with the Borg, the Sona, now peace with the Romulans, and he replies he’s just lucky. {Play canned laughter.} In reality he should be scarred from the first two and the third one could be one of the biggest things in their history.

Also, he’s sent because his was the closest ship, not because it was Picard, and when he’s told about it, he asks if he’s going with or without the rest of the fleet — presumably in command of, as he’s done in FC and “Redemption,” not to mention the Lit.

 

Wow dissing the excelsior class. Although I didn’t see very many of nebulas or ambassador in the dominion more either. Excelsior classes are usually flag ship of a admiral so i’m sure they are still important starship that fights pretty well. And by the way on DS9 the Cairo went missing but he was no longer the captain a Leslie Wong was. For all we know he was given command of a nebula, ambassador class, or even a galaxy.

They both started the situation. If Riker and company had of been so arrogant to challenge him in him public then he wouldn’t have to be an ass. Also Geordie said he could do it so technically he didn’t have to suck up his pride and ask Riker. Also he didn’t have to rescue picard, because Starfleet did not tell him he had to rescue him. He could’ve done nothing and I don’t think Starfleet would have charged him with anything. And another thing I’m not sure every captain in starfleet would be able to come up with a plan that deals with the cardassian and gives them enough leverage to release picard.

but the enterprise D was never in any war. Also there is no edvidence that enterprise E was in any serious fighting. There is no evidence picard has ever fought in big battles in a war period. Also. While he was the closest ship I doubt if it were jellico commanding the ship they would have sent the enterprise. Because it requires a diplomatic touch picard has not a warrior like jellico. While I’m not saying he isn’t a warrior of sorts, he is an diplomat and explorer first and prominently. Another thing about Jellico. If he wasn’t such a Good captain then their is no reason starfleet would give him comand of the enterprise when I’m sure there were others to pick from. And before you say the put him in command for the negotiations, he didn’t have to be in command. They could have brought him along to be in the negotiations and have someone else command enterprise, if they thought he wasn’t good enough to command the enterprise. Im beginning to believe you would like us all to believe he wasn’t a good captain just because he got on peoples nerves and didn’t like taking no for an answer. Starships are not commanded by a group of people it’s commaded by one. Riker forgot that he is just the executive officer he is to execute the commands of the commanding officer and to offer alternatives. Not question orders after the CO has already made a decision. Now if his commands have been threatening to the ship then they would have grounds to disobey them, but since data (who of course has no feelings, and such has no arrogance or question orders just because he doesn’t like them, well except for one time I can remember and even then he had a good reason) did not seem to question jellico orders at any time during the episode, jellico was not threatening the ship. He can run the ship however he wants as long as it’s by the book. While it is important that the crew respects their captain, but you have to remember this was crunch time. Crunch time we don’t really have times for the pleasantries. I’m not saying he’s better than Picard but he is definitely not worse. They’re just better in different fields. Also dominion was not the brushfire. That was some dispute I think it was some border dispute that. The dominion is the reason why picard had to put out the brushfire Because they were tying up the diplomatic corps.

 

Actually, Riker had a headstart. His pissy attitude began with Nechayev, before meeting Jellico.

 

The other Jellico thread has like 50+ pages of some good debate on it. For me it's telling that one of the few things Picard says to his fellow captain is that he's wrong about Riker. Only a short time together and he already noticed Jellico making the wrong judgements about the crew.

And then there's this:

Now that's coming from Geordi who we know from that episode with Scotty he does not overestimate the amount of time something will take to get done.

 

Totally agree

 

Picking up a few earlier posts, I think if a manager is brought in to avert or alleviate an imminent catastrophe it could be quite reasonable for him or her to come in hard and lay down the law, particularly if the problem has been caused in some way by a previous weak leadership where staff aren't immediately self motivating.

However, I don't believe that's the case here. Picard seems to run a tight enough ship and I think Starfleet would have intervened if he'd displayed a "laissez-faire" attitude leading to his senior staff not performing their duties.

Moreover, as Makarov and others have pointed out with quotes from Geordie and Riker, Jellico's demands appear unreasonable and cause unnecessary stress in a situation difficult enough to start with.

I take the point that Riker verges on insubordination, but, while I know little about military codes, isn't it part of an XO's role to make it clear if he thinks the captain is making a mistake? Short of disobeying a direct order, anyway.
Riker has done that for Picard with no ill feelings, it's Jellico's attitude that leads two of them to be antagonistic.

As a final point, the question here is "Who is the better Captain"?
In that context it's probably worth remembering Starfleet's core principles are carrying out peaceful exploration and forming diplomatic alliances, not military conquest, as regrettably inevitable as that may sometimes be.
By those rules, Picard just is objectively the answer.

 

I just feel this is a classic case of someone who's not necessarily a people person (we don't have sufficient time to find out), not only put in charge of managing an entirely different group of people, but put in that position in the midst of a crisis. I don't think he felt he had the time to get to know people, and clearly didn't seem inclined to do so (I imagine he was hoping this would be a very short-term mission in any case, so why bother?).

I feel the blame goes both ways, in that yes, Jellico was a hard-ass who wasn't there to make friends and such, but our heroes are supposed to be the best in the fleet or what-not, and part of that should entail being able to adapt to change.

Did Riker at any point bring Geordi's concerns about simply not having enough time for the requested changes to Jellico, and without giving him attitude about it? The incident which most stands out in my mind is the whole thing involving going from three to four shifts, which was amounted to Riker essentially ignoring an order.

 

So, because it appeared to Starfleet that the Cardassians were angling for a military aggression, Picard is the better captain? I'm not sure how that logic works.

 

No, fair point.
As I said, sometimes military action is inevitable and in dealing with a race like the Cardassians, diplomacy is rarely going to work as they won't respect it. In that case Picard's skill set probably wouldn't be appropriate and a much more aggressive response would be. It's like the expression "only Nixon could go to China".

However, I stand by the idea that in a straight binary choice, with no caveats or other information, Picard is the "better" captain for the ongoing Federation mission. But it's just as well he's not the only sort of captain available.

 

Can we agree that it was kind of silly that the only Federation officer that could go undercover on this mission was Picard, no one else.
No one else had experience with theta-band carrier waves.
No one was better trained for a mission like this.
It had to be Picard.

So, Picard went on a mission and to replace him arrives Jellico. Someone who creates friction between everyone. Drama.
It felt somewhat forced.

 

Not in public. Riker let should have done it in private. An XO role is to excute the orders of the Captain and suggests alternative s. Not openly question his orders unless they are threatening the ship, which they didn’t or I think data would have said something. In which case they should believe him because since he has no feelings he would be doing it for the safety of the ship not just because he thinks they are stupid.
I’m sure Riker didn’t meant to openly question jellico but that what he did. Also Riker could have followed the users under protest and note it in his log and starfleet figure it out later. Unless of course he can prove that the orders would be dangerous to the ship and crew.

 

Riker had intended to do just that about the shift changes, the first hint of trouble with Jellico is that he wasn't interested in a private discussion on the matter, but was content to bark "get it done", ignoring the fact that Riker had issues he wished to raise for Jellico's consideration. After all, it's not as if waiting until the next day would have left the shift unmanned or anything so it's far less dangerous to the ship that half-finished upgrades to the back-up systems because LaForge didn't have the manpower due to personnel transfers (both directly Jellico's orders).

 

That makes sense. There's a big difference between suggesting alternative options and openly undermining your commanding officer's authority. It does seem Riker went on the wrong side of that.

I think Jellico's report on Riker after the mission was over would make interesting reading, though as far as we know it didn't seem to hurt Riker's standing in Starfleet.

 

No he was the only officer with a good amount of experience and the other two are not in starfleet. The cardies did it only to lure picard.

 

I will agree to that but he did that so the enterprise would preform better in battle. Also deep space nine switch to a 4 shift rotation and they didn’t seem to have manpower problems.

 

And the Feds walked right into that trap.

 

Yeah, but as far as we know a) they did over a period of time, not in less than a day, b) not while also undertaking a major overhaul of the power systems and c) not while conducting battledrills, potentially with people that they aren't used to working with.

Any one of the above is good (note nobody even Riker disagreed with the battledrills or the phaser improvements), any two might be doable even in a short period of time*, but to insist that all three be done simultaneously and immediately and refusing to even listen to issues with the plan is unwise and unprofessional.

*At least four major engineering projects at the same time, with only two-thirds staff - the smallest of which was seven hours work to introduce a third back-up for a system - is a big ask, particularly as regular Cardassian warships are no match for a Galaxy-class starship (two Galors barely scratched the paintwork of an unshielded Enterprise in The Chase, and three Galors (with three moreon the way) fled rather than risk a confrontation with the Enterprise in Emissary).

 

Perhaps the point of doing all three simultaneously was precisely to prepare the crew for the conditions they might need to operate under if things with the Cardassians went badly?

IIRC in A Time to Heal it's mentioned that during the Dominion War an Excelsior-class vessel operated at Red Alert constantly for a month. We never got to see, either on any of the shows or the movies, how bad things really could have gotten for Our Heroes. Arguably AR-557 was the worst of that, but even then the events we get a window into are resolved relatively quickly.

 

Thank you i was going to say something like that but I’m not the best with words

 

The Exelsior is an 80 year old ship. The only reason we even saw it was budgetary. It’s not the flag ship of admirals but usually seen as their ferry. All that’s beside the point.

There’s no telling what happened to Jellico if he’s no longer on the Cairo. He could have died, retired, been captured, demoted, fired, sick, transferred, on assignment, or on his way back, among other reasons. Also beside the point.

I’ll have to take another look at the episode. Beyond it being badly done (the E crew came off unlike intended), the point is the buck stops with the captain. The crew is maybe the finest in the fleet, yet he had the hardest time with them. When Riker tells him at the end he’s arrogant, closed-minded, needs to control everything and everyone, and doesn’t provide an atmosphere of trust or to inspire his crew to do their best, that’s significant. That’s what the character was about.

As mentioned upthread, wishful thinking. I get the feeling you’re trying to undermine the flagship because your favored captain wasn’t mine. If we never met Jellico and at the end of TNG a massive war broke out, you’d imagine the Federation’s most powerful starship would be in the fight, as would be likely.

This is irksome to me. Jellico isn’t a warrior. He was a Cardassian expert. If Picard did a guest stint on the Gallant thwarting a Tholian invasion, he wouldn’t be a warrior. He’d be doing part of his job, as we’ve seen him do before.

Again, he’s the Cardassian expert. The reason they sent Picard on the away mission is because of his biogenic weapons background.

Again, Jellico rose to the rank of Starfleet captain and they did trust him with command of a Galaxy Class starship, but he was problematic.

Part of the problem with Jellico was that you wondered at what point would there have to be crew action against him. That was part of the drama of the episode. On the one hand, he was playing a risky game with the Cardassians, and on the other, if he starts losing crew left and right, that’s extremely dangerous. When Early Picard was in a near mutinous situation at the end of “All Good Things...,” he knew how to handle it. With Jellico, you wonder. Is there a way for him, with his issues, to? Sure. IDIC, and all that. But if you’re a writer writing him in an episode, it’s a lot easier to write him getting mutineed than other captains we’ve seen.

 

That happens.

 

There wasn't any war to fight in while Enterprise-D was in service. Right?