A Matt Decker ?

[Shaw]

Timeline of events...

• Decker's Log: Constellation reports exceptional subspace interference has stopped them from contacting Star Fleet to report the destroyed solar systems. Masada reports that the fourth planet of L-374 was braking up, Constellation moves to investigate.
• -known- Constellation is attacked, while investigating what was happening to the fourth planet. Weapons, shields, and engines are disabled. Decker evacuates the crew to the third planet while still under attack. Before he can join them, another attack disables the transporters. The Planet Killer refuels after the battle by destroying the third planet, but for some reason doesn't destroy the Constellation.
• Enterprise receives a partial distress call while reaching system L-370, all of the planets in the system are destroyed. No evidence that the Enterprise attempts to call Star Fleet.
• By the time the Enterprise reaches system L-374 a survey shows nearly every system in that sector blasted to rubble. No evidence that the Enterprise attempts to call Star Fleet.
• Enterprise finds Constellation, wrecked and drifting in space. Palmer reports heavy subspace interference that is almost blocking the signal from the Constellation. Sulu reports that there are no other vessels in the area.
• Kirk and damage control team board Constellation. Between logs and Decker's accounts, Kirk should have full knowledge that whatever attacked the Constellation is more powerful than anything one ship could handle. Kirk is informed that the antimatter in the Constellation's warp engines has been deactivated.
• Spock reports the first known attempt by the Enterprise to contact Star Fleet. Kirk is informed of the Planet Killer's path. Decker is beamed to the Enterprise.
• Upon Decker's arriving on the Enterprise the Planet Killer intercepts the two starships. The speed at which it popped up should tell how fast it is (Sulu said there were no other vessels in the area). Without any provocation by the Enterprise, the Planet Killer attacks (showing that the Constellation also need not have done anything to provoke the first attack on it).
• First attack on Enterprise damages transporters and communications. After a short chase, the Planet Killer resumes it's original heading towards the Rigel system. Spock does not dispute the fact that the Planet Killer will reach Rigel before Star Fleet can be informed and take any action (the Enterprise would have to travel many lightyears in a perpendicular direction to the Planet Killers course to reach an area free of subspace interference to contact Star Fleet).

So what are the possibilities for action at this point?

Spock has given up on saving Rigel and wants to inform Star Fleet. Odds are that once communication with the Rigel system is lost, Star Fleet will be responding anyways, but the Enterprise could warn them of what they are facing.

Decker wants to attempt to stop it.

In all reality, the best they could hope for was to slow it down. Had Decker taken a less aggressive position, they could have led the Planet Killer away from the remaining two planets of L-374 (which could have been fuel for the Planet Killer) and back towards the previously destroyed systems. If weakened enough, the Enterprise could have slowed it down and gotten to a place to contact Star Fleet.

Sadly, no one seemed to take this type of plan into consideration (which would have been to long for a one hour TV show anyways).


On the question of command. Decker was a flag officer. He could have commanded the Enterprise from the Constellation just as well as from the bridge of the Enterprise. Still, when authority on a ship is to be considered, the ship's commanding officer is given ultimate authority. Spock could not relieve Decker without cause, but Kirk could. And no other officer on the Enterprise would have been included in any court hearings if Decker had filed a complaint against Kirk for his actions.

While it may sound neat to say that the crew was loyal to Kirk, the fact of the matter is that the crew would have followed Decker without question for as long as he was in command. Spock was the only person with authority to keep Decker in check on the Enterprise, and he was limited in what he could do.

Further, there was evidence that once the Enterprise no longer posed a threat to the Planet Killer, that it would have left it just like it left the Constellation. The only really dangerous place to be while around the Planet Killer seemed to be on a planet.




It is interesting to see so many people attempting to make Decker out to be the bad guy in this episode. Specially as the original premise of the episode was what would Kirk do if a mistake had killed everyone on the Enterprise?. Decker's character was a substitute for Kirk in this story.

 

[pookha]

shaw, i dont think luring the planet killer very far would work.
a ship goes far enough away and it is no longer an immediate threat.

 

[J.T.B.]

Shaw said:
On the question of command. Decker was a flag officer. He could have commanded the Enterprise from the Constellation just as well as from the bridge of the Enterprise. Still, when authority on a ship is to be considered, the ship's commanding officer is given ultimate authority. Spock could not relieve Decker without cause, but Kirk could. And no other officer on the Enterprise would have been included in any court hearings if Decker had filed a complaint against Kirk for his actions.

This is not clear. Decker says that he has the authority under Starfleet regulations to take command of the ship. Spock agrees that he has that authority. In the US Navy, a flag officer eligible for command at sea certainly does have the authority to issue orders to a ship's CO, even if the ship is not under the flag officer's command on paper. This, of course, would not involve taking direct command of the ship; orders would simply be issued to the CO.

The situation in "The Doomasday Machine" simply boils down to the fact that Kirk decided that taking command away from decker, whether legal or not, was preferable to the course that Decker was following. If he thought about the consequences, he probably figured he had a good chance of convincing a court that Decker was incapacitated. And Spock obviously agreed and backed Kirk's play.

--Justin

 

[Hambone]

Why doesn't someone call "Weepin' Willie" and ask him? I'm sure he'd be glad to discuss Star Trek with you.

 

[Plum]

pookha said:
hmm the idea that decker could have resisted even after talking with kirk but instead decided to step down was interesting.
but i would throw in another factor. decker's respect for kirk.
once jim dressed him down and verbally backed spock matt may have respected that.

Umm... but Spock had to call over security guys and threaten Decker with confinement. Decker selfishly stated he "don't recognize your authority to relieve me" and so on. He was full of navy beans right then.

He was Ahab, he would have blast his heart upon the beast if his chest were a canon, ship and crew be damned. Note, Ahab was nuts too.

 

[boobatuba]

Anyone else notice that Decker thinks his original mistake was being "too far away" from the planet killer to destroy it? For some reason he thinks that full phasers at point-blank range will make a difference, when it is obvious that they are useless at any range versus a neutronium hull. Heck, a FLEET of starships firing at it wouldn't even slow it down. At the very least, why not get behind the dang thing at fire at it from the rear, where the machine can't attack your ship?

Nevertheless, Spock has to wait until they are being pulled in by a tractor beam to declare the attack "attempted suicide." I understand the episode is written this way for the drama, but this is the point that always bothered me.

 

[Plum]

Spock is just being by the book, I suppose? That is, he accepts Decker and let's him take command even though he might be insane. Spock has no knowledge of Decker's actual state of mind except for what McCoy says... but can't back up.

In the middle of a battle, Decker took command. I can see Spock following regs to the letter and letting Decker take command even though Kirk is merely out of communication. I'm assuming regs would give the high ranking officer "in a battle" authority. Sorta like Captain Picard taking command of the Borg attack fleet in First Contact. Bad example I suppose but it's the first thing I thought of. And I do believe this follows general naval regulations.

 

[Plum]

Shaw said:
Timeline of events... <SNIP!!!> ... Spock does not dispute the fact that the Planet Killer will reach Rigel before Star Fleet can be informed and take any action (the Enterprise would have to travel many lightyears in a perpendicular direction to the Planet Killers course to reach an area free of subspace interference to contact Star Fleet).

Before? I missed this part. Spock kept insisting they needed to get away to warn star fleet, and thus save Rigel. Hopefully.

I don't remember Rigel facing certain doom unless Enterprise attacks. This was not Decker's motivation nor Kirk's when they sought to destroy the planet killer. Right?

 

[James Wright]

What was the planet killer's hull made of? Spock said that a single ship could not stop the planet killer.
Decker should/would already know this if his science department had run scans.

JDW

 

[Plum]

^^^
Yea but he was long gone... so he's pulls the "full phasers at point blank" line, as if it would make a difference.

The hull was "pure neutronium". Which is something really hard I'd assume.

 

[Shaw]

Plum said:
Before? I missed this part. Spock kept insisting they needed to get away to warn star fleet, and thus save Rigel. Hopefully.

I don't remember Rigel facing certain doom unless Enterprise attacks. This was not Decker's motivation nor Kirk's when they sought to destroy the planet killer. Right?

It wasn't until Spock was going to let the planet killer continue onto Rigel that Decker assumed command.

The transcript from on or about Stardate 4202:

• SULU: It's veering off, back on course for the next solar system... the Rigel colony, sir.
  SPOCK: Evidentially designed to ignore anything as small as a ship beyond a certain radius. We'll maintain a discrete distance and circle back to pick up the captain.
  DECKER: You can't let that thing reach Rigel, why millions of innocent people would die.
  SPOCK: I am aware of the Rigel system's population Commodore, but we are only one ship. Our deflector shields are strained, our subspace transmitter is useless. Logically our primary duty is to survive to warn Star Fleet Command.
  DECKER: Our primary duty is to maintain life and the safety of Federation planets... Do you deny that?!?
  SPOCK: Mr. Sulu, you will lay in an evasive course back to the Constellation.
  SULU: Aye-aye Sir.
  DECKER: Delay that last order helmsmen. 180 degree turn, hard about. We're going to attack.
  SPOCK: You will carry out my last order Mr. Sulu.
  DECKER: Mr. Spock, I am officially notifying you that I am exercising my option, under regulations, as a Star Fleet commodore, and that I am assuming command of the Enterprise.
  SPOCK: You have the right to do so, but I would advise against it.
  DECKER: That thing must be destroyed!
  SPOCK: You tried to destroy it once before Commodore, the result was a wrecked ship and a dead crew.

Decker's log stated that the Constellation was unable to reach Star Fleet to tell them about the destroyed solar systems, which means that the effects of the planet killer were large enough to effect communications while still several solar systems away. A course in the same direction as the planet killer would keep the Enterprise in the heart of that subspace interference. To contact Star Fleet, the Enterprise would have to travel away from Rigel.

Spock saw no means with which to save Rigel...

• DECKER: Maintain speed and distance.
  SULU: It is sucking in space rubble from those destroyed planets... refueling itself.
  SPOCK: We can maintain this speed for only seven hours before we exhaust our fuel, but it can refuel itself indefinitely.
  DECKER: Then we'll have to fight it now before it gets any stronger.
  SPOCK: Illogical. We can not destroy it so we can not save Rigel. We must transport the Captain and the others from the Constellation and escape this things subspace interference in order to warn Star Fleet Command.

 

[Plum]

... ah. I stand corrected.

 

[boobatuba]

Shaw said:

• DECKER: Maintain speed and distance.

Another favorite line...how exactly does a starship maintain its speed and distance from a pursuing machine that is gaining on it? If it's going faster than you, wouldn't you have to increase speed to maintain your distance? Or, you could maintain your speed, and the distance would decrease as the machine catches up.

All the indicators were pointing to Decker being completely loony, or incompetent...take your pick.

 

[pookha]

Plum said:
Spock is just being by the book, I suppose? That is, he accepts Decker and let's him take command even though he might be insane. Spock has no knowledge of Decker's actual state of mind except for what McCoy says... but can't back up.
.

it would have been interesting if spock had seen just how bad off decker had been when first found.

as for spock calling the security dogs on decker.
if decker really did have the chain of command on his side he could have made an issue of being removed by force from the bridge and included the security team for their actions.

but he didnt.
it really to me felt like a last bluff of what we will see soon a very desperate man.

but considering how desperate he was and the stakes he believed to be at hand (protecting rigel something decker references several times) he went along off the bridge quietly until he attacked the guard.

 

[CoveTom]

I still find it interesting that despite the obvious trauma that Decker had gone through, the state that he was first found in on the Constellation, and his obvious desire to take actions that any objective analysis shows are hopeless and put the crew at unnecessary risk, Starfleet regulations apparently said that McCoy couldn't relieve Decker as being unfit for command without a full medical examination.

If that's true, it would seem to completely defeat the purpose of the CMO being able to declare a commanding officer unfit. All a deranged CO who's gotten the ship into a crisis has to do to dodge being relieved is to refuse to submit to the exam due to said crisis, and the CMO is apparently powerless.