A Commodore?

[James Wright]

In at least 2 episodes of TOS there are 2 Commodores wearing red shirts, George Stocker-"The Deadly Years" & Commodore Stone-"Court Martial". I thought red represented Enineering, Security & Ship's services, Stone was probably an engineer and had command experiance. Can someone shed some light on Commodore George Stocker? He almost got everybody on the Enterprise killed!
What color of shirt did Commodore Barstow-"The Alternative Factor" wear?

JDW

 

[Therin of Andor]

Mustard.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Richard_Derr

 

[A beaker full of death]

"George?"

 

[sbk1234]

That could explain why Stocker was such a shitty starship commander. To his credit, though, he originally didn't even want the command, but wanted Spock to take over for Kirk.

 

[CoveTom]

^ Also to his credit, he was right that Kirk was not fit to be in command, and Kirk should have been removed if he refused to step down. However, he was incorrect in his perception of what needed to be done with regards to the Enterprise's course and, regardless of his rank, was not the proper choice to take command. Whichever Enterprise officer was highest in the chain of command and not affected by the disease should have taken command.

 

[Neopeius]

CoveTom said:
^ Also to his credit, he was right that Kirk was not fit to be in command, and Kirk should have been removed if he refused to step down. However, he was incorrect in his perception of what needed to be done with regards to the Enterprise's course and, regardless of his rank, was not the proper choice to take command. Whichever Enterprise officer was highest in the chain of command and not affected by the disease should have taken command.

That'd be Sulu, who has taken combat command before, a couple of times. But Stocker may have felt that a mere Lieutenant couldn't handle a Starship.

Stocker was described as a deskbound paperpusher. Sounds like some sort of administrator to me. He might have been a brilliant logistician. But he couldn't handle the awesome responsibility of command.

 

[Timo]

Agreed. Apparently Stocker and Stone were birds of a feather, dedicating their careers to efficiently administrating a starbase. The goldshirt/greenshirt Commodores like Decker, Wesley and Mendez would have been field commanders with combat experience.

It's not as if Stocker just froze in a crisis, though. That would have been fairly realistic even if he had all the required skills, merely lacking in experience. What is harder to swallow is that Stocker would order the ship into Romulan space in the first place. Is that the act of a paper-pusher?

I'd have no trouble seeing somebody experienced like Wesley or Decker or Mendez pull that stunt - I would merely assume that they knew the risks, and that they had a stroke of bad luck when the Romulan Border Praetorians were actually awake and alert this time around. But it would be a really weird choice for a "theoretically qualified" base commander in 1962 to say "I'm taking over this B-52, now let's take a little shortcut across Soviet airspace to get the sick navigator to Landstuhl a bit faster"!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JM1776]

Timo said: Apparently Stocker and Stone were birds of a feather, dedicating their careers to efficiently administrating a starbase.

If I recall correctly, when speaking to Kirk Stone actually says something to the effect of, "Only one man in a million can do what you and I have: Command a starship."

In addition, Stone gives off an aura of authority and competency Stocker utterly lacked.

 

[CoveTom]

What I also find interesting about all of this is that Stocker, despite all his faults, seems to be the only one who was willing to even suggest that Kirk was unfit for command. All those around him, from the most senior officer to the most junior, seem content to just pretend that he's okay and let him continue to go on for risk of hurting his feelings.

I understand that these people were loyal to Kirk and, in the case of Spock and McCoy, were also close friends. But as he continued to deterioriate, someone aboard that ship should have been responsible enough to say something. Was no one willing to consider the safety and welfare of the ship over the possible hurt feelings of the captain?

 

[JM1776]

Excellent point, but ... I always assumed they were simply going to let Kirk remain a figurehead, and gently correct him as necessary. That seemed to be the case in the ep, from what I could see.

 

[James Wright]

Why put Stone in the same boat as Stocker? We'll never know how Stone might handle the situation.

JDW

 

[Neopeius]

JM1776 said:

Timo said: Apparently Stocker and Stone were birds of a feather, dedicating their careers to efficiently administrating a starbase.

If I recall correctly, when speaking to Kirk Stone actually says something to the effect of, "Only one man in a million can do what you and I have: Command a starship."

In addition, Stone gives off an aura of authority and competency Stocker utterly lacked.

This is all true.

It is possible that Stone took on the red shirt when he assumed command of a supply/repair base. Or someone could wiggle and say he took temporary command of a ship from an Engineer's position, but that doesn't seem in line with the sentiment of the scene.

The question is: Was Stone the commander of a starship or a Starship?

 

[number6]

An anthology of the Commodores..

 

[DarthPipes]

Timo said:
Agreed. Apparently Stocker and Stone were birds of a feather, dedicating their careers to efficiently administrating a starbase. The goldshirt/greenshirt Commodores like Decker, Wesley and Mendez would have been field commanders with combat experience.

It's not as if Stocker just froze in a crisis, though. That would have been fairly realistic even if he had all the required skills, merely lacking in experience. What is harder to swallow is that Stocker would order the ship into Romulan space in the first place. Is that the act of a paper-pusher?

I'd have no trouble seeing somebody experienced like Wesley or Decker or Mendez pull that stunt - I would merely assume that they knew the risks, and that they had a stroke of bad luck when the Romulan Border Praetorians were actually awake and alert this time around. But it would be a really weird choice for a "theoretically qualified" base commander in 1962 to say "I'm taking over this B-52, now let's take a little shortcut across Soviet airspace to get the sick navigator to Landstuhl a bit faster"!

Timo Saloniemi

Starfleet, the Federation, and any other military or political organization would have had Stocker's ass for what he did. You can respect his wanting to save Kirk and the other affected crewmembers but you cannot do it at the expense of starting an intersteller war or conflict.

 

[James Wright]

I think Stone's Starfleet career was much like Scotty's, he'd served on starships as an engineer so he knows the ships, at some point in his career he had oppertunities to sit in the center seat while an engineer and eventually had a center seat of his own, thus his promotion to Commodore and posting to a starbase.

JDW

 

[Neopeius]

JDW said:
I think Stone's Starfleet career was much like Scotty's, he'd served on starships as an engineer so he knows the ships, at some point in his career he had oppertunities to sit in the center seat while an engineer and eventually had a center seat of his own, thus his promotion to Commodore and posting to a starbase.

Maybe, but people change shirt colors all the time in Trek. A red uniform in the present does not mean he wore red in the past. Ditto the other flag officers on the tribunal.

 

[Timo]

Line officers, too, I think? That's the old chestnut: who's who in "Court Martial"? Two guys wear a green dress jacket, one has a blue one. There is no discernible difference between a Commodore's dress uniform and a Captain's. The titles up for grabs are "Space Command Representative Lindstrom", "Starship Captain Krasnovsky" and "Chandra".

I'd be willing to make the green-jacketed guy to Stone's left Krasnovsky - he looks Russian enough for the "narrow ethnicity view" to work, too. The other green Captain or Commodore could be Chandra, again by ethnicity. The blue jacket would then signify something other than starship command; a "Space Command Representative" might be Kirk's peer but might never have sat in the center chair of a Starfleet vessel.

But Stone seems to nod the other way, indicating that Lindstrom is to his left, in green. No problem: the other green guy can be Captain Krasnovsky, despite the ethnicity mismatch, and the blueshirt Captain or Commodore can be Chandra, a guy apparently so famous that his exact title and role in Starfleet need not be mentioned.

So no need for any of the non-greenjackets there to have a starship CO past, really.

Going from command colors to something else is pretty rare in general. But it happens. Happened to Spock after "Where No Man". Happened to LaForge and some other low-ranks, too. Could certainly happen to Stone.

The question is: Was Stone the commander of a starship or a Starship?

In the TOS context, I'd have to say Starship. I wonder if there's something in Stone's past that forced him to relinquish Starship command and accept a desk job - thus making his eagerness to smoke Kirk out of his command all the more poignant?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[pookha]

Neopeius said:

JM1776 said:

Timo said: Apparently Stocker and Stone were birds of a feather, dedicating their careers to efficiently administrating a starbase.

If I recall correctly, when speaking to Kirk Stone actually says something to the effect of, "Only one man in a million can do what you and I have: Command a starship."

In addition, Stone gives off an aura of authority and competency Stocker utterly lacked.

This is all true.

It is possible that Stone took on the red shirt when he assumed command of a supply/repair base. Or someone could wiggle and say he took temporary command of a ship from an Engineer's position, but that doesn't seem in line with the sentiment of the scene.

The question is: Was Stone the commander of a starship or a Starship?

well what kirk said certainly implies at some time stone had been.

and i agree with you. the red shirt commmodores were the head of starbases that were primarily repair .
in the episode not only was enterprise in for repairs but so were several other starships.

while perhaps mendez was in charge of one that had more administrative duties.

 

[Timo]

To be sure, the greenjacket Mendez was never truly associated with starbases, save for happening to reside in one at the beginning of the adventure. For all we know, redjacket Stone was still in command of Starbase 11 at the time of "The Menagerie", only not in speaking terms with Kirk for prefectly understandable reasons...

OTOH, "Court Martial" is stardated 2947 while "The Menagerie" is 3012, so there could have been a change in command. But somehow I find it more satisfactory to think that Mendez was as unrelated to SB 11 as the dialogue makes him, and more like Wesley or Decker in position and role.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CoveTom]

Timo said:
No problem: the other green guy can be Captain Krasnovsky, despite the ethnicity mismatch, and the blueshirt Captain or Commodore can be Chandra, a guy apparently so famous that his exact title and role in Starfleet need not be mentioned.

I'll have to go back and listen to the line again, but I thought Stone said Starship Captains Krasnovsky and Chandra, indicating that they were both starship captains. But I may have misheard the plural.