"A Mistake For You to Accept Promotion"
- Thread starter Admiral_Sisko
- Start date
... And, apparently, nothing really BAD happened in all that time, either.
Ian Keldon
Fleet Captain
For one thing, allowing one person the same command for 30 years would choke off promotion opportunities for the rest of the crews.
Take a look at these numbers, courtesy of the US government:
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/navy_legacy_hr.asp?id=146
The entire personnel and training system would break down if they allowed officers (or enlisted for that matter) to simply "park" their careers in one spot for any extended length of time.
Yet, that's exactly what Picard and Riker were allowed to do aboard their Enterprise. Granted, Riker was finally told that he would never get a command of his own if he didn't accept the offer to command the Titan. But Starfleet seemed not to care that Picard had maintained the same post for 15 years by the time of the final TNG film.
Other career fields don't have a hierarchy of ranks with legally-mandated obedience to superiors, either. Think of it as a pyramid with a lot of low-level jobs on the bottom and a few ultra-high-responsibility jobs at the top. The higher the responsibility, the higher the rank. You want your best people to be able to take on positions of higher responsibility as they gain experience, right? But they can't do that if their seniors are "parked" indefinitely in desirable positions. Think of the corollary if someone is allowed to stay in a position they prefer for as long as they want: There is some other person potentially stuck in a position they don't prefer.
Military organizations have had plenty of experience with this kind of thing, and not pushing people up through the ranks has had universally negative consequences. For instance, the US Navy after the Civil War. Because the Navy grew so much during the war years, a few able (and fortunate) individuals achieved high rank at a relatively young age. Without mandatory retirement in place, they effectively locked up the top positions for decades, while other fine officers stayed lieutenants for 20 years. This led to a stagnant, demoralized and inefficient service.
Yes, what makes sense for keeping a TV/movie cast together does not really hold up to common-sense scrutiny. Unfortunately TNG made a point of emphasizing how great it was that Riker was never promoted, which I felt was bad for the character and credulity alike.
Justin
Last edited:
Kirk was probably competent at other jobs, but excellent at starship command.
Quite possible. Plenty of instances in history where people proved brilliant at one rank or level, and less so (or worse!) upon promotion. As I siad, the Peter Principle.
Agreed, he was born to command a starship. Anything else would be "a waste of material." Good old Spock, he got it right in the end.
P
pengbuzz
Guest
I can think of more than a few instances where Kirk didn't exactly "play by the book" in TOS. Just from the reference in "Trials and Tribble-ations", the guys from the temporal department of Starfleet weren't happy with what he did constantly going back in time, which would have pushed the Prime Directive. Also, Chang in STVI claimed that Kirk bucked regulations "whenever it suited him".
But all that said, you raise a good point: the "regulation bucking" Kirk was really born during the movie era.
I don't attach much credibility to this statement, as Chang was speaking as a prosecutor in Kirk's trial, and was trying to make the argument that Kirk didn't follow orders. And given that Chang himself was later implicated in the conspiracy to frame Kirk and prevent peace between the Klingon Empire and the Federation, it's clear he broke the rules to a greater extreme than Kirk ever did.
Treason is just about as bad as it gets in rule-breaking. Chang was a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black, even if "we" didn't know it at the time.
Ian Keldon
Fleet Captain
Kirk's reputation for rule-breaking (or at a minimum severe rule bending) was a well established TOS trait.
Off hand I can cite as occasions where he did one or the other:
Kirk also had a rather...strained...relationship with the Prime Directive, or otherwise meddling in non-Federation planetary affairs, including:
I deliberately omitted instances where his meddling was to counter other outside interferance, such as the Neural Incident with the Klingons, etc.
Throw that in with all the temporal stuff, and Kirk gets a dodgy reputation quite easily.
Off hand I can cite as occasions where he did one or the other:
- diverting to Vulcan to save Spock's life (Amok Time)
- dragging his heels about abandoning the search for the Gallileo (Gallileo Seven)
- ordering Spock to relieve Decker (The Doomsday Machine)
Kirk also had a rather...strained...relationship with the Prime Directive, or otherwise meddling in non-Federation planetary affairs, including:
- causing the supercomputer copy of Landru to self-destruct
- taking Eminiar and Vendicar to the brink of mutual annihilation
- destroying Vaal
- formenting revolution in the Mirror Universe
I deliberately omitted instances where his meddling was to counter other outside interferance, such as the Neural Incident with the Klingons, etc.
Throw that in with all the temporal stuff, and Kirk gets a dodgy reputation quite easily.
Kirk got away with breaking regulations because Starfleet knew he was just THAT good. They couldn't risk losing him.
That old line comes to mind - "It is better to ask for forgiveness than for permission".
Ian Keldon
Fleet Captain
Both true statements, but sooner or later, the "establishment" always snaps mavericks like that back.
^ Except in Starfleet. The only time Kirk any significant "snapping back" was when he was demoted from Admiral to Captain at the conclusion of TVH. And then, that "punishment" was really just a thinly veiled way to give him back what he really wanted -- command of the Enterprise.
Which would never happen in the military in real life, I assume. 
I agree with you.
Spock was correct.
Meanwhile Bones is using Romulan ale for medicinal purposes. By the barrel.
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