Let's be real, could Captain Decker have pulled it off?

[CoveTom]

I always felt that if Decker had been in command, not much would have been accomplished because he would have been too cautious, not having Kirk's command instincts from years of experience in deep space dealing with bizarre monsters. So the Enterprise under Decker's command gets eaten by V'Ger, and then Earth and the rest of the solar system get eaten by V'Ger.

Which raises another interesting point. V'Ger gets to Earth, doesn't get an answer from "the creator," and decides to barbecue the inhabitants because it thinks they're the problem. Once the carbon units are all gone, the planet goes completely silent and still no answer from the creator. What does V'Ger do then?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Which raises another interesting point. V'Ger gets to Earth, doesn't get an answer from "the creator," and decides to barbecue the inhabitants because it thinks they're the problem. Once the carbon units are all gone, the planet goes completely silent and still no answer from the creator. What does V'Ger do then?

Get out out there before the Whale Probe shows up.

 

[Parallaxis]

Which raises another interesting point. V'Ger gets to Earth, doesn't get an answer from "the creator," and decides to barbecue the inhabitants because it thinks they're the problem. Once the carbon units are all gone, the planet goes completely silent and still no answer from the creator. What does V'Ger do then?

Seems like V'Ger wanted to merge with the creator from the beginning. So I assume it would have just digitized the entire planet and hope to get the creator in there somewhere. It's anyone's guess what it would do once it reached its destination and had no where else to go? Sit and wait? Attempt to store the entire galaxy? Who knows?

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I always felt that if Decker had been in command, not much would have been accomplished because he would have been too cautious, not having Kirk's command instincts from years of experience in deep space dealing with bizarre monsters. So the Enterprise under Decker's command gets eaten by V'Ger, and then Earth and the rest of the solar system get eaten by V'Ger.

Yeah, honestly, there isn't much point to the movie if Kirk isn't doing the job that Decker can't.

 

[CoveTom]

The thing I find unrealistic is the idea that Starfleet would give command of the Enteprise to someone that green. True, the whole "this is the super-important flagship of the Federation" trope hadn't yet been established, but even TOS talked about how big and important starships are and how being the commander of one is a big deal. Seems an odd posting for an apparent command rookie.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Decker was supervising the refit, and the refit starship was launched prematurely. I don't believe that there's anything we're shown on screen that would tell us whether Decker would have captained the new starship beyond her shakedown cruise. The conflict we see is between the egos of Decker and Kirk, where the argument that Decker has against Kirk is essentially that Kirk cannot qualify in time regarding the capabilities of the ship that are new and different from what they were in the version of the ship that Kirk had captained.

I'll also add that Kirk arguably was performing at least part of his function in Starfleet by replacing Decker. The self-gratifying aspect of replacing Decker with himself was how it got problematic. What would have made it seem less selfish would have been a line or two about there being no one who could get there in time who was more qualified than Kirk to make first contact with aliens posing an existential threat to humanity. This is precisely the sort of thing that could have been said in the conversation between Kirk and Admiral Nogura.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Decker was supervising the refit, and the refit starship was launched prematurely. I don't believe that there's anything we're shown on screen that would tell us whether Decker would have captained the new starship beyond her shakedown cruise. The conflict we see is between the egos of Decker and Kirk, where the argument that Decker has against Kirk is essentially that Kirk cannot qualify in time regarding the capabilities of the ship that are new and different from what they were in the version of the ship that Kirk had captained.

I'll also add that Kirk arguably was performing at least part of his function in Starfleet by replacing Decker. The self-gratifying aspect of replacing Decker with himself was how it got problematic. What would have made it seem less selfish would have been a line or two about there being no one who could get there in time who was more qualified than Kirk to make first contact with aliens posing an existential threat to humanity. This is precisely the sort of thing that could have been said in the conversation between Kirk and Admiral Nogura.

I seem to remember that the novelization made it clear that Kirk requested personal command from Nogura because Kirk wanted command back. I haven't read the novel in a few years so I could be misremembering.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I seem to remember that the novelization made it clear that Kirk requested personal command from Nogura because Kirk wanted command back. I haven't read the novel in a few years so I could be misremembering.

I don't doubt that. I haven't read the novel, but my understanding is that there are numerous differences between the film and the novel.

 

[Warped9]

McCoy said it in the film. Kirk wanted to command again and the Vger emergency gave him the opportunity.

Whats missing in the film is the backstory given in the novel of Nogura maneuvering Kirk into accepting promotion whereas otherwise Kirk could have continued in a ship command.