Not really. Why wouldn't Decker bring up his fleet being relatively near by instead of having a dick waving contest with Spock about going all the way to Rigel?
Desperate to get out from behind his desk, like Kirk in Star Trek II.
Pike and "Fleet Captain"?
- Thread starter BillJ
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Not really. Why wouldn't Decker bring up his fleet being relatively near by instead of having a dick waving contest with Spock about going all the way to Rigel?
Desperate to get out from behind his desk, like Kirk in Star Trek II.
Might work. Although in light of the DSC take on this, he's just trying to die, as destined...
Decker having a fleet that takes no part in intercepting the DDM is no less odd than the other aspects of this supposed intercept. The beast is slower than a crippled starship at 1/3 impulse, yet Decker worries about it reaching some colonies in a different star system altogether? Any attempt at going after the beast is already poor thinking, never mind going after it solo: the only sensible option is to retreat, to outside the jamming range, so that more assets can be, if not brought to bear, then at least alerted. But Decker is not being sensible in the slightest, and Spock has to extract Kirk before considering retreat.
The initial setup is also odd, just as in "Omega Glory": Kirk has no proper idea on where fellow starships might currently be, while OTOH Starfleet allows multiple starships to blindly stumble onto each other in what seem to be stupidly overlapping missions. A fleet or two getting lost in that mess is not entirely unexpected.
Timo Saloniemi
Decker having a fleet that takes no part in intercepting the DDM is no less odd than the other aspects of this supposed intercept. The beast is slower than a crippled starship at 1/3 impulse, yet Decker worries about it reaching some colonies in a different star system altogether? Any attempt at going after the beast is already poor thinking, never mind going after it solo: the only sensible option is to retreat, to outside the jamming range, so that more assets can be, if not brought to bear, then at least alerted. But Decker is not being sensible in the slightest, and Spock has to extract Kirk before considering retreat.
The initial setup is also odd, just as in "Omega Glory": Kirk has no proper idea on where fellow starships might currently be, while OTOH Starfleet allows multiple starships to blindly stumble onto each other in what seem to be stupidly overlapping missions. A fleet or two getting lost in that mess is not entirely unexpected.
Timo Saloniemi
Yeah that was dumb. Laws or regulations should have disqualified him from taking that command.
MASH is a comedy satire and doesn't aspire to realism. Trek, OTOH, should tread more lightly in that area. If it's normal for everyone competent to disdain higher responsibility, you have to wonder, who is running this apparently highly successful organization? Everyone grumbles about their bosses, but nobody refuses a promotion because they don't want to be "one of them." If they're any good, they look forward to applying their experience to do a better job than their former bosses. Realistically, officers would shuffle between staff and operational posts throughout their career and any promotion, even involving "desk duty," would be an expected and welcome chance to show ones abilities.
Right but the British term was "captain of the fleet." He was the admiral's administrative right-hand-man, but not necessarily second in command of the fleet. Fleet captain was the US version. A CotF to a fleet commander-in-chief was often a rear admiral by rank. By WW1 the title captain of the fleet had been replaced by "chief of staff," but in the very large Grand Fleet Jellicoe had both a chief of staff (RAdm Madden, responsible for operations) and a captain of the fleet (Cdre Halsey, responsible for materiel and maintenance).
Flag rank captains of the fleet, 1814:
MASH ended up being far more realistic than a lot of shows that constantly strive for it. As far as TOS goes, I think realism exited pretty early on, and I'm not sure I would change a thing about it. It was big and brash, and did its own thing.
Lately I have come to wonder if Starfleet ships are not operating in small fleets with each ship about a week apart, as I have said on other threads. This really lines up with dialogue from TNG. I suppose three or four ships: Something big or important, a an escort of some kind, a scouting ship mapping ahead, and a cargo ship supplying the others. I directly avoided using ship class terms here to avoid the question of what "Explorer" or "Cruiser" really mean
Thus, the ships are nearby for normal operations in space, but presumably there not being that many ships, they really are not close enough to arrive in the midst of a battle.I surmise that once a captain reaches the level of being in charge of such an entire small fleet-type group, he/she is then a Fleet Captain, and it is sort-of irrelevant if it is rank or a position or both.
What I don't want to see is the rank system get to convoluted by conflicting ways of showing the same rank with different insignia.
By the way, Commodore Stocker, having never been in command of a ship, probably had been a Colonel, between being a Commander and a Comodore, since thank rank seems to be used in place of Captain when the person is not commanding a ship. Kira wore a Captain's Starfleet uniform and was called Colonel on DS9. I know she had been a Major in the Bajoran services, but she was in a Starfleet function by this time.
Decker could have been assigned a space station/star base posting with a Starship (maybe an older one) at his disposal. The station/base would be in control of the ships in that space sector, thus giving him a squadron of ships (not a fleet) under his command. We see three commodores in charge of star bases in TOS (Stone, Mendez and Stocker)(none with a ship at their personal disposal), Wesley over a temporary squadron of four starships in The Ultimate Computer (the episode is also associated with a space station; maybe it is under Wesley, too), and Decker whose assignment was never elaborated, but he may have been in command of a space station or star base and having the only ship handy to investigate the DM mystery (not uncommon with many TOS situations), took the opportunity to jump into his ship and do some real space work again.
In DS9, the space station originally was commanded by a Commander rank, then a Captain rank with a ship assigned to him. If a squadron of ships was assigned to DS9 and its sector, then Sisko should have been promoted to Commodore rank, but they did away with that rank by then, and the DS9 was not Starfleet/Federation property, is was only managed by them for the Bajoran government.
It actually permeates a lot of TV. You see that attitude also in some cop shows.
Umm, not quite. Kira wore the pins of a Starfleet Commander, which would be the exact "naval" match for the "ground" rank of lower Colonel, the one that the English-speaking world calls Lieutenant Colonel. This rank comes right after Major, so the natural assumption would be that Colonel Kira was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel specifically, rather than for some mysterious reason skipping a rank and ending up a "full" Colonel.
Of course, nobody in Star Trek actually says "Lieutenant Colonel" specifically. But nobody need to, as "Colonel" is the correct form of address for that rank, just like "Commander" is the correct form for Chakotay's rank of Lieutenant Commander. Kira's rank pin is distinct from that of another Colonel appearing in the show - which is perfectly natural if this Colonel Day is in fact a "full" one while Kira isn't one yet.
(But Starfleet doesn't have Colonels of any color in evidence. Earth's old Military no doubt still did in the 2150s, as they had army-style ranks overall. But the closest the UFP Starfleet ever comes is showing a guy with a Vice Admiral rank pin who apparently is named Cornell West...)
Timo Saloniemi
Interesting points. Actually Lt. Colonel for Kira makes more sense with her still answering to Sisko. As to Colonel West, I'm just trying to come up with something that justifies his being that rank in-universe, since it really makes little sense onscreen and was more of a political commentary. Having a Colonel or Lt. Colonel Kira at least makes Colonel West less of an odd part of Star Trek's history.
I always wonder if the USS Constellation, Exeter and any of the other ships we saw were part of the fleet that turned up at Organia to confront the Klingon fleet? 
JB
JB
We could say that the Intel community uses army-style ranks, just like the Tal'Shiar has Majors and Colonels where the Romulan navy otherwise has assorted Commanders. Perhaps Colonel West was disguised as a Vice Admiral, just because? (Perhaps his mustache was false, too?)
Then again, if rationalization is our approach to this, then all the dialogue on "Colonel West" is equally well covered by assuming that Cornell West is his name. It's fairly rarely in Trek that people would be addressed by the officious combo of their rank and their name, surprisingly enough. And the UFP President was on a first-name basis with folks; if he drops rank with Grand Admiral "Bill", then having the conversation feature a "Cornell West" instead of a "Vice Admiral Cornell West" makes sense, too.
The only other time the character is mentioned at all is in the Scooby-Doo edition of the movie where his dead body is identified with a shocked "It's Cornell West!" from one of his colleagues. Using rank in that situation would feel somewhat unnatural... There is no scene where anybody would nod in his direction and call him Colonel, say.
Timo Saloniemi
Wait, so you you are saying that there is a written version of that movie, albeit with another franchise mixed that uses the word as his first name and not as a rank?
Just from a different branch of Starfleet. One that probably is more combat oriented with a ground component. It is an oddity, but not one that is impossible to reconcile.
West would still be an oddity. Because Starfleet and the Bajoran Militia are two distinctly separate entities.
Well, the "written" version of the movie states that the communication officer's name is Uhuru, which is about as authoritative as the fact that she's actually but an impostor named Nichols (no doubt a key part in that big conspiracy thing). What we hear pronounced is what counts, and I choose to hear Cornell West. Is all.
Timo Saloniemi
I get what you are saying, but since she is a Starfleet uniform at the time, I am under the impression she makes a second instance of a Colonel in Starfleet.
I thought someone called her Commander during those episodes where she wore the Starfleet uniform?
Then again, Colonel West is a nod to Colonel North, an actual Marine (Lieutenant) Colonel involved in presidential conspiracies. I take it at face value that this Vice Admiral was known to be a Colonel and addressed as such on a personal basis. He wasn't the President's friend (like Bill), he was a prim and proper soldier, following orders.
Colonel could be an honorary title (like a Kentucky Colonel, or more likely given by another polity outside of Starfleet), or a reference to a position of Colonel ("Colonel of Troops, Starfleet Marine Corps") acceptable for a Vice Admiral/Lt. General to hold. It could be a nickname or personal name he's known by, after a series of military treatises on the Klingons (The Next Klingon War and You, by VADM Patrick "Colonel" West), or even the rank he holds "in reality" when not posing as a Starfleet admiral to sneak in and out of presidential briefings undetected. He was a master of disguise afterall.
I always liked the idea that Kira was, in fact, a full Colonel, promoted two steps by the Militia to equal rank with Sisko in theory if not in practice. When Starfleet commissioned her, they gave her a lower rank as it was a simple field commission.
When will they ever address the Klingons regaining their so called true appearance during the time between TOS and TMP? The Augment virus from ENT (the only thing that I liked about that series) must have either cured or they naturally evolved beyond it!!! 
JB
JB
Timo was calling it the "Scooby-Doo edition" of the movie because some folks have likened the "It's Colonel West!" unmasking scene in the Director's Edition of STVI to being like the ending of a Scooby-Doo episode.
^^ This. The character being named "Colonel West" is just an in-joke/jab at the real life Col. North, and I don't really analyze it any further than that. Especially since his scenes aren't even included in the theatrical cut and it's a moot point anyway.
When will they ever address the Klingons regaining their so called true appearance during the time between TOS and TMP? The Augment virus from ENT (the only thing that I liked about that series) must have either cured or they naturally evolved beyond it!!!
JB
Never, apparently. Since officially it seems to have been cured between Enterprise and Discovery, and the 2260s Klingons are just something they don't talk about with outsiders.
