That's the sign of a poor commander then. Only thinking of himself.
What Would Jellico Do?
- Thread starter Ragitsu
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That's the sign of a poor commander then. Only thinking of himself.
Jellico did not try and earn respect. He 'fixed' problems that didn't exist.
Only Riker was insubordinate and Jellico handled him poorly.
A cult of personality is an extreme. Commanders earning the trust and the respect of their subordinates should be the standard.
Jellico was a poor leader and a poor manager because he failed to bring his subordinates with him. Yes, they have to follow him but a leader will always get better results if they work with rather than always dictate.
You wanna die on this hill, pal? Fine. I got plenty of ammo.
He thought they existed, and that's all the justification he needed to fix them.
Riker was the First Officer, which made him the Chief Disciplinarian on the ship. It was his job to bring the crew in line, not to defy authority on their behalf. Once he made his objections known and Jellico rejected them, argument over, the captain wins and the First Officer does his fucking job.
But it's not. It really is not. Whether or not the subordinates like him has never been an overriding prerequisite for an officer to be given command. Jellico was appointed to command of military unit, not head coach of a football team. His command isn't invalidated just because he "lost the locker room."
And I say he was great commander because he recognized that his position meant he didn't have to care whether his subordinates were "with him."
And the biggest problem with the Anti-Jellico argument is that the criticism always stems from the belief that Personal Feelings supercede Chain of Command, but the reason why militaries establish chains of command is that they work regardless of anybody's feelings.
And like it or not, the captain of a ship is a dictator, and requiring him to achieve a consensus among the crew before he takes any action actually undermines his authority. He can't be seen as relying on the crew's feelings before he makes a decision because one day he's going to make a decision the crew doesn't like. In that situation, Chain of Command says "tough shit" and moves on, while your definition of "leadership" makes the situation a recipe for munity.
He thought they existed, and that's all the justification he needed to fix them.
Riker was the First Officer, which made him the Chief Disciplinarian on the ship. It was his job to bring the crew in line, not to defy authority on their behalf. Once he made his objections known and Jellico rejected them, argument over, the captain wins and the First Officer does his fucking job.
But it's not. It really is not. Whether or not the subordinates like him has never been an overriding prerequisite for an officer to be given command. Jellico was appointed to command of military unit, not head coach of a football team. His command isn't invalidated just because he "lost the locker room."
And I say he was great commander because he recognized that his position meant he didn't have to care whether his subordinates were "with him."
And the biggest problem with the Anti-Jellico argument is that the criticism always stems from the belief that Personal Feelings supercede Chain of Command, but the reason why militaries establish chains of command is that they work regardless of anybody's feelings.
And like it or not, the captain of a ship is a dictator, and requiring him to achieve a consensus among the crew before he takes any action actually undermines his authority. He can't be seen as relying on the crew's feelings before he makes a decision because one day he's going to make a decision the crew doesn't like. In that situation, Chain of Command says "tough shit" and moves on, while your definition of "leadership" makes the situation a recipe for munity.
I think that the problem here seems to be a disagreement between what actions Jellico had a right to take and what actions were prudent.
To use my prior analogy, did Jellico have the right to order the crew to reconfigure the photon torpedo launchers to shoot bucketfuls of pink chrysanthemums? Yes, he did.
Did Riker have the right to tell Jellico that reconfiguring the torpedo launchers to shoot chrysanthemums would make the ship less combat-effective? Again, yes. That was part of Riker's job.
Did Jellico have the right to tell Riker and the crew to make the change anyway? For a third time, yes. He was the captain.
Would reconfiguring the photon torpedo launchers to shoot pink chrysanthemums have been a good idea? Probably not.
Would that fact change because the mission was accomplished and the torpedo launchers were never used? No.
Finally, was the crew's feelings about pink chrysanthemum ammo relevant to the wisdom of Jellico's decision? No. If pink chrysanthemum ammo facilitated the Enterprise doing its job, it was a wise decision.
If we didn't actually see the pink chrysanthemum ammo in action, how can we assess whether Jellico's decision to utilize it was a good one? We can't.
In light of this, should we agree to disagree? I think that would be wise.
To use my prior analogy, did Jellico have the right to order the crew to reconfigure the photon torpedo launchers to shoot bucketfuls of pink chrysanthemums? Yes, he did.
Did Riker have the right to tell Jellico that reconfiguring the torpedo launchers to shoot chrysanthemums would make the ship less combat-effective? Again, yes. That was part of Riker's job.
Did Jellico have the right to tell Riker and the crew to make the change anyway? For a third time, yes. He was the captain.
Would reconfiguring the photon torpedo launchers to shoot pink chrysanthemums have been a good idea? Probably not.
Would that fact change because the mission was accomplished and the torpedo launchers were never used? No.
Finally, was the crew's feelings about pink chrysanthemum ammo relevant to the wisdom of Jellico's decision? No. If pink chrysanthemum ammo facilitated the Enterprise doing its job, it was a wise decision.
If we didn't actually see the pink chrysanthemum ammo in action, how can we assess whether Jellico's decision to utilize it was a good one? We can't.
In light of this, should we agree to disagree? I think that would be wise.
You said he didn't have the right to make that decision alone, that's factually wrong.
Wether the decision was good or bad can be debated but there's zero proof either way, all we know is that Jellico thought it was a good idea and Riker thought it wasn't and in that case the CO "wins" by default.
And Jellico wasn't just thinking of himself, he wanted to give the crew shorter shifts and more downtime in between which he saw as an advantage because they'd be more rested and alert during their shifts (and in real life there's evidence too that people work much more effective when they have a six hour work day instead of 8 hours).
That's a poor analogy though, shooting bucketfuls of pink chrysanthemums might work under very specific circumstances against a very specific kind of enemy and at surface level the order would seem to be insane.
Switching from a three shift to a four shift rotation on the other hand is small potatoes, starfleet definitely already has a standardized four shift duty roster ad many ships who use it and the Enterprise crew isn't even that large, a few hundred people if we exclude the civilians. So all Riker had to do was to inform the department heads and they in turn would sort the people in their departments (only a dozen or two in some cases) into the alpha, beta, gamma and delta shifts, press Enter and the computer spits out the new roster. The change could have been implemented within a few hours.
And I don't buy the argument that the crew would somehow screw up because they don't work with the people they're used to anymore. The Enterprise crew is supposedly the best of the best in starfleet but Lt. Branson can't deal with a few colleagues he usually only saw during the shift change or during string quartet practice? And that assumes that people don't change shifts regularly anyway which is something that should be done to prevent the shifts becoming to cliquey and creating an us vs. them dynamic within the departments.
In the long term, they would be fine. But we weren't working in the long term. We were looking at "we might be fighting the Cardassians tomorrow".
My sole objection to Jellico's changes is very specific in nature. He made a significant change in the ship's organization at an inopportune time. I don't dispute that it was within the parameters of his power to do so, or his right. But I still think it was imprudent.
so completely pissing off and changing the crew that defeated the Borg, kept peace with the cardassians, halted the Klingon civil war, and stopped the romulan invasion of Vulcan is the right way to deal with it?
The only thing that Riker did wrong was failing to remove such a dangerous commander. That Crusher had been removed from the ship was perhaps related to it.
Well, the chain of command is pretty serious in Starfleet. Look how crazy that fake Picard had to get in "Allegience" before Riker relieved him.
There's quite a bit of territory between "questionable judgment" and "bat-s*** crazy", and Jellico was really only guilty of the former. And indeed, many of his decisions were sound, given the circumstances.
There's quite a bit of territory between "questionable judgment" and "bat-s*** crazy", and Jellico was really only guilty of the former. And indeed, many of his decisions were sound, given the circumstances.
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Thank you for whittling it down to that. I had suspected as much. However...
How inopportune it was is totally based on how you alone are interpreting the circumstances. It wasn't as if they were minutes or hours away from battle, when he adjusted the shift rotation. He was given a not insignificant ramp up time, to make expected, & probably command cleared alterations for the upcoming mission... a period wherein Picard was able to take a 3 man team, with no prior knowledge of the mission, & train them to infiltrate a secret Cardassian base.
You're telling me that it's well within acceptable measures for Picard to take on that, (Which beat the daylights out of them) meanwhile the actual entire D crew can't shorten their shifts by a couple hours? You're making a mountain out of a mole hill imho, & the episode bears that out, without any of the issues Riker said there'd be (Which was a grievance that had no actual relevance to battle conditions, when he made it anyhow)
When he made that change, they weren't in any imminent threat of battle conditions. They hadn't even started negotiations yet. The failure of those negotiations was the point at which battle would potentially become imminent. Thats a fluid timeline, that Jellico himself had a little control over, because he himself was leading the negotiation. So he'd be in the prime position to know just how long he might have before things began to get dicey, & how that might go down.
it was clearly a flexing issue, he went to his quarters to look at his kids pictures rather than briefing his XO on his plans and requirements.
Sure as the captain you can make an order in the middle of a battle when seconds count, and explain it later, as Data did on the Sutherland.
That is not what Jellico did.
It wasn't Riker.
QUOTE:
RIKER: "There is no delta shift yet, sir. I have spoken to the department heads about changing from three shifts to four, and they assure me it's going to cause us significant personnel problems."
JELLICO: "So you have not changed the watch rotation."
RIKER: "I was going to explain this to you after the ceremony, sir."
JELLICO: "You will tell the department heads that as of now the Enterprise is on a four shift rotation. I don't want to talk about it. Get it done. Now that means delta shift will be due to come on duty in two hours. I expect you to have it fully manned and ready when it does. Is that clear?"
There is no reason to assume that the department heads were lying. That means that the Enterprise was dealing with "significant personnel problems" on its way into a potentially dangerous situation. Now, I am willing to acknowledge that Jellico had the right to cause those problems, as per the chain of command. I'm not willing to endorse his actions.
It amuses and amazes me that after so many years, one character in one episode can cause so much discussion. It certainly validates the power of the episode including the acting, writing and directing.
It was on its way into a negotiation, not yet imminent battle. He was given time to prepare the crew & ship for the type of operation he'd need to run, & did so, & I'm not saying the dept. heads were lying. I am saying he had more mission specific info than they did, & what they considered "significant" was based on their own interpretations without all the relevant knowledge that he brought with him, from his briefings.
It's for him to decide whether their problems were significant enough to merit holding off the changes he (& likely command) had decided on. He very likely already knew exactly what "problems" Riker was representing, & even how many shifts they ran before he asked (He already knew damn near everything, stepping off the pad). What it amounts to is not them being false, but them being wrong, because they weren't privy to know what he knew.
No. To anyone who wants to disagree with him, it appears like flexing.
That's not what happened. He was in his office, looking over some of Picard's things lying around, & those drawings just happened to be on his desk, because these are things that belong to him. The previous scene, he is literally briefing & evaluating all kinds of things on the bridge. Troi is the one who drew attention to the drawings
The problem I feel you're having is that you're not satisfied with what briefing you're being shown (which probably wasn't even all that he gave) What you're looking for is for him to give explanations of everything he's doing that someone there doesn't like, & that is not in any way incumbent upon him. He doesn't owe these people a bunch of explanations for everything he says.
AND perhaps courtesy should dictate that he give more than we're seeing him give... but in what way have they been courteous to him? That's a 2-way street, & his presence was objected to before he even showed up. He's been the guy no one wants from before he arrived.
I agree. It's something of an eternal debate within the fandom, & I think it's because it strikes at a very sensitive issue for fans. It comes down to a simple choice. The episode imho is deliberately challenging the viewers to question their bias to support the judgement of the series regulars, the protagonists, by putting in someone who ISN'T an antagonist (in this episode that guy is Madred or the other Cardassians)
Jellico is just someone who apparently doesn't see things how they do, & primarily on this show, the antagonists get exposed for their wrongs. Not so with Jellico, because he isn't one. He's actually just one of them... a heralded Starfleet officer, doing a hard job, & getting it done amidst adversity. So who is right or wrong is left open to interpretation.
Some of us are able to question our regulars' judgement objectively, & some of us are invested in them more, & that bias goes against the interloper by default. Nothing gets to me more than people who only see the default take. The show is daring us to second guess what our heroes are saying, thinking & doing. We owe it to the incredible people writing & making it to do so imho. This guy might not be any different than any of them. I've seen Riker himself do just as many discourteous or bossy things. He's the last guy to tell anybody they are a tyrant. This dude dresses down his own doppleganger lol
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Your Jellico worship is blinding you. He pulled staff away from “essential” war preparations and engineering work (he took half the engineering staff out to put them on security for some reason, presumably to deliberately deplete their energy so the cardassians would win the battle Jellico wanted) to redecorate the ready room. His priority on boarding wasn’t to brief his XO, it was to retreat to his quarters. Troi found him, hours later, hiding away from the crew in the office, not reading classified briefings, not spending the time bringing Riker up to speed or attempting to fix the relationship Jellico deliberately sabotaged from the very moment he stepped on board, he was spending his time looking over his sons pictures and arranging trinkets:
Jellico is arranging a sculpture or something when the doorbell rings)
JELLICO: Yes?
TROI: May I speak with you, Captain?
JELLICO: Deanna. Come in, come in.
(there are some child's drawings on his desk.)
JELLICO: The latest masterpieces from my son. It's an elephant. I think.
TROI: Definitely an elephant.
Later we see that as well as spending all that effort in relocating the fish? The reason he did It was to put the pictures up on the wall.
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