Enterprise destruct sequence participants

[alpha_leonis]

The first time we see the classic Enterprise's destruct sequence, it's in "Let that Be Your Last Battlefield". We see it requires three participants: Kirk, Spock and Scotty -- the captain, first officer, and ... Scotty's role could *either* be the Chief Engineer, *or* the second officer, since we frequently see him in command when Kirk and Spock are both absent.

The second time we see it, it's the same procedure, and still requires three participants. Kirk still has the captain's slot. Spock is otherwise occupied (recognized as dead at the moment), so Scotty moves up to slot two (effectively I think he's the acting first officer.)

I'm wondering, though, about the choice of Chekov instead of Sulu for Slot #3. Back during the original run of TOS, Sulu was most often in the command slot behind Scotty. Chekov actually never took command once, in any event we'd seen before. And most recently before this movie, he had been Reliant's first officer, and was only filling in on Enterprise while Reliant was stranded. Did his first-officer-on-another-ship status override Sulu's status as (perhaps) acting second officer on Enterprise?

 

[Mytran]

Well Sulu wasn't really an official part of the Enterprise crew either at that stage - he was just a visiting dignitary on an inspection tour who overstayed his welcome.
It seems that the third officer participating in the self destruct sequence can be ANY serving officer in Starfleet - or if that seems too broad then could assume Kirk signed them up as temps on the Enterprise roster after the events of TWOK.
But rank or position doesn't seem that crucial either way.

 

[EnriqueH]

I thought the same thing but it gave Chekhov something to do.

I believe Sulu was officially “Captain” at that point.

Man, I absolutely love Shatner’s acting in “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”, when confidently gave the destruct order.

“You can drag this ship to Cheron, but I control the computer. MINE is the final command!”

BADASS.

 

[Vger23]

Chekov was actually, officially, the XO of the USS Reliant at this point, which means he may have the priority over Sulu from a chain of command standpoint.

 

[Lord Garth]

There are going to be hypothetical situations where the first, second, and third-in-command aren't all on the bridge at the same time in such a scenario where they have to destroy the ship. Maybe one was missing, wounded, or killed in action, or otherwise separated. So I would think anyone who's a senior officer would be able to give a destruct code. But it's useless without the combination of whoever has command and two other senior officers.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

I thought the same thing but it gave Chekhov something to do.

CHEKOV! Please! It's only been 50 some odd years.

Checkhov was a famous author on 19th/20th century Earth (and Chekov would enthusiastically point out that he was Russian!).

 

[Timo]

There are going to be hypothetical situations where the first, second, and third-in-command aren't all on the bridge at the same time in such a scenario where they have to destroy the ship. Maybe one was missing, wounded, or killed in action, or otherwise separated. So I would think anyone who's a senior officer would be able to give a destruct code. But it's useless without the combination of whoever has command and two other senior officers.

A more or less sensible setup would give everybody the right to blow up the ship (in groups of three, later pared down to two agreeing), but establish a pecking order, identical to the rank structure of the ship, on who can override whose self-destruct attempts.

If scuttling the ship really is deemed a relevant maneuver to begin with, then it should be doable even in the direst of situations, with just three men, women or assorted crewbeings standing. It might even be installed as a default setting: everybody dies, the ship blows up on her own. (But it isn't - the Excalibur or the Exeter or the Defiant never blew, even though their crews had no opportunity to turn off auto-destruct of this sort.)

...The other issue typically raised in this connection is "passwords". As in, "why weren't they changed in the intervening decades?"... But note that the question of authorization is already handled by the "I am James Bloody Kirk so hear me out" part, that is, voice recognition; passwords would be superfluous. The string of numbers and letters may be there to help out voice recog, or then just to make it more difficult for the person in question to do it, that is, give him time for second thoughts. And parts of it are likely to be specs for just what sort of scuttling is to be performed: countdown or no, also blowing up all the nearby enemy ships or planets or no, reversal option or no, etc.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's probably just 3 department heads, or officers above a certain rank. Sulu could have been just as eligible but for whatever reason didn't do it.

 

[Lance]

Even though the specific scene was deleted from TWOK, Sulu was in transit to becoming captain of the Excelsior, and was only filling in as helmsman as a birthday gift for Kirk. The captaincy line was dropped, but the rest is still there.

I always thought it may have been fun if Sulu had been captaining the Excelsior in TSFS and had orders to chase down his old crew, and would either end up being an antagonist, or else (ala TUC) loyally sabotaging Excelsior himself to help his friends get away. I could totally see him doing that.

 

[Maurice]

CHEKOV! Please! It's only been 50 some odd years.

Checkhov was a famous author on 19th/20th century Earth (and Chekov would enthusiastically point out that he was Russian!).

Get used to it. People also type Geordie for Geordi all the time.

 

[at Quark's]

What if every rank carries a score of "authority points" (the higher the rank, the higher the score), and you need to exceed a certain sum to blow up the ship? So the first two officers and any third can blow up the ships, or, say, 4 commanders, or 6 lieutenants, or 9 ensigns can (or any combination in between, as long as it exceeds that sum).

Then preferably, if it actually has to happen, you'd still take the top 3 of the ship to do it, or more generally, the highest ranking aboard, but it wouldn't be needed.

 

[David cgc]

What if every rank carries a score of "authority points" (the higher the rank, the higher the score), and you need to exceed a certain sum to blow up the ship? So the first two officers and any third can blow up the ships, or, say, 4 commanders, or 6 lieutenants, or 9 ensigns can (or any combination in between, as long as it exceeds that sum).

Then preferably, if it actually has to happen, you'd still take the top 3 of the ship to do it, or more generally, the highest ranking aboard, but it wouldn't be needed.

That makes a certain amount of sense, especially considering that in a lot of situations where you might want to scuttle the ship, it's possible many senior officers are dead or incapacitated. What if the kids on the Valiant in DS9 needed to set off the self-destruct?

 

[at Quark's]

^A practical drawback I could think of about this point system is that in such crisis situations you wouldn't want any added complexity. If you have only seconds to spare, you don't want to occupy your time with having to find a correct combination and doing mental arithmetic.

Still I think the 'point system' could be chosen in such a way that it's easy to compute the result in most cases, and additionally, these people apparently do calculus at age eight or so

 

[Timo]

What if the people remaining alive can't reach that sum total? Does the ship then fall in enemy hands?

So far, we haven't seen a self-destruct where there would be zero delay. Perhaps such is not included in the menu, and the stowaway brought aboard by Janitor's Mate, 9th Rate can initiate destruct if need be - but the system always first checks if higher-ups really approve. If it fails to reach higher-ups, it errs on the side of caution, which in this case means blowing up the ship because the failure is indicative of either the bosses being dead or the computer itself being compromised; scuttling thus really helps out Starfleet and the Federation, while failing to scuttle serves the enemy.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ChallengerHK]

My thought would be that the auto destruct is a chance to allow remaining crew to escape before the ship is destroyed in a controlled manner. If the requirements to initiate auto destruct, whatever they are, cannot be met, remaining crew who feel the situation is sufficiently dire could deactivate anti matter containment.

 

[Timo]

Indeed, we never see any of our hero skippers actually attempt suicide with the auto-destruct: if it is offline, they don't try to destroy their ship by alternate, self-fatal means. Janeway being the exception, for assorted natural reasons.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[David cgc]

Indeed, we never see any of our hero skippers actually attempt suicide with the auto-destruct: if it is offline, they don't try to destroy their ship by alternate, self-fatal means.

How many times have the self-destruct been disabled? The only time I can think of off the top of my head is Nemesis, and that could easily be interpreted as the warp-core failsafes actually making the ship safe from failure (for once), and had ejected the antimatter pods when the ship was too damaged and a core breach became a possibility.

 

[Timo]

Well, "Basics" is the other case, also interesting in the sense that it's the only one in Trek where we have reason to think it wasn't bluff or a survivable scuttling maneuver but a bona fide panicky extended-suicide attempt.

In "Basics", Janeway had no time to go to Engineering and fire a phaser at the warp core. In ST:NEM, Picard did have that opportunity, but chose not to, for whatever reason; while he walked down there, the crew could have evacuated, just as in the scenario where the automated system was functioning. He did choose a personal suicide attack, so it wasn't this holding him back.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lance]

See, the mention of "Basics" brings up an interesting point, and that's "checks and balances".

We know Starship captains occasionally go mad.

It seems to me that having more than one voice print would be a requirement, to avoid one person going postal on their own ship.

Kind of like needing two people to turn the keys and activate the nuclear missiles, or whatever that fail-safe is.

So, the long version on TOS and in Star Trek III makes perfect sense.

You need three people to activate the self destruct.

Now, The Next Generation changed that to *two people*, but still, a fail-safe was there. We see that the destruct requires both Picard and Riker's authorizations, both to switch it on *and* off, in the episodes "01001001" and "Where Silence Has Lease".

But by the time of Voyager, for some reason, the self destruct only requires Captain Janeway's authorization. Alone.

Why would this be?

My assumption is simply that Lt Cmdr Cavitt's authorization was required too, but following his death it defaulted to Janeway alone.

But why not to the second officer? I can understand it not going to Chakotay, he's not a Starfleet officer, but why not Tuvok? Or, why not make it a plot point that without her first officer, Janeway now doesn't have that card to play?

Instead, it seems irresponsible, every time USS Voyager's destruct is activated, that it is done on Janeway's word alone...

 

[Timo]

I'm not sure doubting the skipper's sanity is generally relevant. We haven't really seen a successful case of the lower officers dissuading a seemingly mad CO from proceeding with dubious things, such as committing acts of war, ordering a suicidal course, refusing to surrender in face of insurmountable odds, or setting self-destruct for seemingly trivial reasons. Or for refusing to disarm self-destruct once the danger appears to be over, such as in "Where Silence Has Lease". It's simply the Captain's privilege to take the ship down with him or her, and a committee of subordinates can press their case only if the CO willingly cooperates.

Which is probably fine and well. Suicide or threat thereof has proven to be a moderately powerful weapon against threats of a type frequently encountered in space: creatures with superpowers and the ability to shrug off conventional weapons and/or to control most of the ship's systems at will. If a few ships are lost in such attempts, or occasionally even in situations that didn't actually amount to such attempts, it's a fairly small price to pay. Ships and their crews are supposed to be expendable anyway.

Timo Saloniemi