Crusher taking command of enterprise was big mistake
- Thread starter Baba101
- Start date
Although, how hard is it to kill Geordi? He's so (UY*ing annoying i could murder him 5 times before breakfast. Kill Geordi and you instantly get a command qualification. that's a little piss easy?
Another side to this question is, shouldn't Picard have stayed on board and in command? His ship's in hostile territory (Borg space), and the person who's best qualified to command it -- the one who was placed in command by Starfleet, and who at that point is in no way impaired from staying in command -- is down on the planet waving a tricorder around? 
Ensign Dippy McShit from the Janitorial Service could wave a tricorder around as well as Picard could.
There's no reason why Picard should have been off the ship at that point, and one very salient reason why he should have stayed aboard: Picard is a much better starship captain than Crusher. When the ship is in hostile territory, the best officer available should be in command.
Brennyren
Ensign Dippy McShit from the Janitorial Service could wave a tricorder around as well as Picard could.There's no reason why Picard should have been off the ship at that point, and one very salient reason why he should have stayed aboard: Picard is a much better starship captain than Crusher. When the ship is in hostile territory, the best officer available should be in command.
Brennyren
Crusher does eventually become a captain, at least in the alternate future of "All Good Things," and it would be reasonable to assume that it's at least partly based on her cool head and use of her own base of knowledge here. That does nothing to change the fact that at the time of this episode, Picard was far and away better trained and more qualified to be commanding the ship while in hostile territory. He was just damn lucky that Crusher was in a position to use the one weensy bit of engineering knowledge she'd acquired (while she was hosting an engineering conference, no less. That didn't make any sense either!) to the ship's advantage.
Picard's ship's on the turf of the most dangerous enemy the Federation had at the time, and he's down on the planet waving around a tricorder? Sorry, that's just never gonna work for me.
Brennyren
Picard's ship's on the turf of the most dangerous enemy the Federation had at the time, and he's down on the planet waving around a tricorder? Sorry, that's just never gonna work for me.
Brennyren
3D Master
Rear Admiral
Uh, that would actually mean she has a lot more engineering knowledge, especially seeing as engineering knowledge you have to acquire before you are certified to be in command of the ship as per that training that Deanna took.
You know, humans are capable of being interesting in more than just their chosen field of profession.
I think you mean "interested," though I'd be the last to deny that Crusher is interesting! (I'm sorry, I couldn't resist....) And Crusher certainly might be interested in other fields than medicine. She's an intelligent and curious woman, and I'm sure she has a wide range of interests. But being interested doesn't make her an engineer. And other than "Suspicions," there's no evidence at all to even suggest that she has interest in engineering. It's not as if we ever saw her assembling gadgets in her free time.
As far as her needing to have engineering knowledge to take the Bridge Officers' Test, well, that doesn't make her an engineer, either. I had to take a first aid course when I was a Girl Scout leader, but no one would suggest that made me any sort of expert on medicine.
So I still think her knowledge of engineering wasn't likely to be vast, and I still think her hosting an engineering conference was bizarre. (Come to think of it, she didn't even invite any of the engineering staff! How rude!
) And I still say Picard and the ENT-D were lucky that the little bit of engineering knowledge she had (however improbably) acquired was exactly the knowledge that was needed against the Borg.Brennyren
Well, she is the mother of the all-around whiz kid Wesley Crusher. What reason do we have to assume that Wes got his smarts from his father's side? 
"Being interested in engineering" in the 24th century education system might easily mean her holding double or triple doctorate. In practice if not in formal terms. I mean, Picard supposedly didn't go to any tech school, either. How come we trust his engineering decisions?
Timo Saloniemi
"Being interested in engineering" in the 24th century education system might easily mean her holding double or triple doctorate. In practice if not in formal terms. I mean, Picard supposedly didn't go to any tech school, either. How come we trust his engineering decisions?
Timo Saloniemi
Anything is at least theoretically possible, including Bev holding engineering degrees. What I said was that we have no reason to believe it's true. We've never seen her so much as repair a toaster (or the 24th-century equivalent thereof). Her off-duty interests seem to run more to the arts, like dancing and theater. She also experiments with growing alien plants, so we can infer an interest in botany. If we're supposed to believe she's interested in engineering, shouldn't we have seen at least a couple of little hobbyist motors in her quarters? Or at the very least, some tinkertoys?
Yes, Beverly is an extremely intelligent woman. We don't have to guess that -- we've seen the proof! She's a top-ranked doctor, and she even was called on to serve a stint as head of Starfleet Medical. You don't get to be head of Starfleet Medical without having major brains. But having major brains doesn't make you an expert in engineering, either. My best friend has an IQ of 130, which is pretty darned intelligent by most standards, but she couldn't repair her radio if it broke. She has the brains, but she doesn't have the specialized knowledge.
Actually, the fact that Bev is such a darned good 24th-century doctor argues against her having a lot of knowledge about engineering. As technology advances, fields of expertise tend to become a lot more specialized. Look at all that a good 21st-century doctor has to know, compared to what his or her 18th-century counterpart had to know. Ditto for a 21st-century engineer compared to his or her 18th-century counterpart. Bev is another three centuries into the future, with all the additional knowledge that implies -- not to mention her specialized knowledge of the biology and medical needs of many non-human species! You're suggesting that with all that she has time to take a doctorate (or know as much as a Doctor of Engineering) in a subject where she has, at most, a passing interest? Not very likely, to say the least.
Which brings me back to an earlier question, which is, just how did she end up hosting that engineering conference where she learned so much about metaphasic shielding? I've always wondered if "Suspicions" wasn't originally supposed to be a Geordi episode, and then maybe Gates McFadden complained, "Hey, I haven't had an episode all season!" Or something like that.
As for Picard, it's true that he never went to a tech school, much less a College of Engineering. But we trust his command decisions because, as a captain, he's a trained tactician, and he knows the capabilities of his ship. Bev doesn't have that kind of day-to-day working knowledge. One could actually argue that Picard handicapped Bev in this episode because he took the Chief Engineer planetside, where Bev couldn't draw on his expertise -- but it actually makes sense for Geordi to be planetside in this case, because he has more influence over Data than anyone else. So it was lucky that what engineering knowledge Bev had, improbably, acquired was actually something that could serve her. Very lucky.
And I still say that it was reckless and foolish of Picard, in this situation, to leave his ship in the command of anyone other that a trained and experienced captain. As VOY's "Workforce" demonstrated, there is a great deal more to starship command than simply being able to pass a test. If you're not familiar with that ep, I'll explain the pertinent part: the holographic doctor, having downloaded a database of command knowledge into himself, assumed command of the ship in the absence of other senior officers. He quickly learned that knowledge wasn't all he needed to be able to do the job.
Picard's ship was in a highly dangerous situation, sitting in the territory of the most dangerous foe the Federation had. In the best interests of the Enterprise and her crew, the most capable -- most command-trained, most command-experienced -- officer should have been in command. For some silly reason, I think that would be the guy who actually was captain. But any way you slice it, it sure wasn't Beverly Crusher.
Brennyren
Yes, Beverly is an extremely intelligent woman. We don't have to guess that -- we've seen the proof! She's a top-ranked doctor, and she even was called on to serve a stint as head of Starfleet Medical. You don't get to be head of Starfleet Medical without having major brains. But having major brains doesn't make you an expert in engineering, either. My best friend has an IQ of 130, which is pretty darned intelligent by most standards, but she couldn't repair her radio if it broke. She has the brains, but she doesn't have the specialized knowledge.
Actually, the fact that Bev is such a darned good 24th-century doctor argues against her having a lot of knowledge about engineering. As technology advances, fields of expertise tend to become a lot more specialized. Look at all that a good 21st-century doctor has to know, compared to what his or her 18th-century counterpart had to know. Ditto for a 21st-century engineer compared to his or her 18th-century counterpart. Bev is another three centuries into the future, with all the additional knowledge that implies -- not to mention her specialized knowledge of the biology and medical needs of many non-human species! You're suggesting that with all that she has time to take a doctorate (or know as much as a Doctor of Engineering) in a subject where she has, at most, a passing interest?
Not very likely, to say the least.Which brings me back to an earlier question, which is, just how did she end up hosting that engineering conference where she learned so much about metaphasic shielding? I've always wondered if "Suspicions" wasn't originally supposed to be a Geordi episode, and then maybe Gates McFadden complained, "Hey, I haven't had an episode all season!" Or something like that.
As for Picard, it's true that he never went to a tech school, much less a College of Engineering. But we trust his command decisions because, as a captain, he's a trained tactician, and he knows the capabilities of his ship. Bev doesn't have that kind of day-to-day working knowledge. One could actually argue that Picard handicapped Bev in this episode because he took the Chief Engineer planetside, where Bev couldn't draw on his expertise -- but it actually makes sense for Geordi to be planetside in this case, because he has more influence over Data than anyone else. So it was lucky that what engineering knowledge Bev had, improbably, acquired was actually something that could serve her. Very lucky.
And I still say that it was reckless and foolish of Picard, in this situation, to leave his ship in the command of anyone other that a trained and experienced captain. As VOY's "Workforce" demonstrated, there is a great deal more to starship command than simply being able to pass a test. If you're not familiar with that ep, I'll explain the pertinent part: the holographic doctor, having downloaded a database of command knowledge into himself, assumed command of the ship in the absence of other senior officers. He quickly learned that knowledge wasn't all he needed to be able to do the job.
Picard's ship was in a highly dangerous situation, sitting in the territory of the most dangerous foe the Federation had. In the best interests of the Enterprise and her crew, the most capable -- most command-trained, most command-experienced -- officer should have been in command. For some silly reason, I think that would be the guy who actually was captain. But any way you slice it, it sure wasn't Beverly Crusher.
Brennyren
Agreed on the spirit and all major points of the above. However, a couple of points of contest that might perhaps lessen the boldness of these objections...
An interest in engineering need not manifest in tinkering with house appliances. I'm an engineer who's currently involved in a field of research that gives little opportunity to practice electronics or mechanics skills, yet my hobbies tend to the arts as much as Crusher's. And if there's something I've benefited from my training as engineer, it's appreciation of the fact that I'm not the person most suited for performing repairs on my fine-tuned tools of trade. Crusher would quickly have learned not to open a medical tricorder, either.
Crusher would need some degree of interest in engineering for "Suspicions" to make sense, yes. But the hosting of that meeting was given a (rather contrived) explanation from her point of view: she felt sympathy towards a specialist nobody listened to. Possibly she had personal experiences on that? The conference could then serve as a cause rather than an effect of her interests in an obscure field of engineering sciences.
As for Picard knowing his ship's technology better than Crusher, I rather doubt that was really the case during the first season of TNG. Picard was an archaeologist first and foremost, and had spent most of his career aboard a single starship, without incentives to study the specs of other ship types every few years in anticipation of a transfer. He'd learn by doing, and by relying on an XO who would have been studying those specs intensively, even obsessively, in order to earn his position.
As for Crusher's "one ace in the sleeve", it actually was anything but. For the most part, she did what a good captain should do: set tactical goals, which her trained underlings then turned into practice. She didn't micromanage (beyond some social micromanaging with the wussy temp tactical officer), or use her insufficient knowledge of the specs of the equipment. Her command decisions were general in nature: evacuate as many as possible; escape from the Borg ship, but not all the way to Earth; go back for the final away teams (for which she formulates a plan by consulting her veteran tactical officer); and then pull a desperate trick out of her sleeve when the plan fails.
It wasn't all that good a trick, either. Her classic "if you have a hammer, all problems become nails" approach left them stuck inside a star when the Borg didn't do quite as she wanted. That's for her lack of experience: no Plan B. Good thing her underlings came up with one.
Troi or Wesley could have made those command decisions, and quite well carried the day, with even less technological knowledge. Picard probably wouldn't have put them in command, though. We don't have to assume Crusher was technologically savvy, but we do have to assume that Picard had some reason to think she would be capable of the tactical thinking she displayed.
And that does sound more plausible than it might at first thought. Unlike any other CMO save McCoy, she spent a lot of time on the bridge, sometimes even during combat engagements acting as a "VIP paramedic" for the bridge staff. She phasered down enemies, attended battlefield away teams, and hobnobbed with a former (?) lover high up in the command chain.
So, IMHO, "Descent" as such was more plausible than it sounds. It's just that the timeline of things is so bass-ackward: Crusher takes the command exam as the result of having been in command; and she gets interested in engineering as the result of organizing an engineering conference. A different order of episodes would have helped quite a bit, not requiring anything else besides prescient writers...
Timo Saloniemi
An interest in engineering need not manifest in tinkering with house appliances. I'm an engineer who's currently involved in a field of research that gives little opportunity to practice electronics or mechanics skills, yet my hobbies tend to the arts as much as Crusher's. And if there's something I've benefited from my training as engineer, it's appreciation of the fact that I'm not the person most suited for performing repairs on my fine-tuned tools of trade. Crusher would quickly have learned not to open a medical tricorder, either.
Crusher would need some degree of interest in engineering for "Suspicions" to make sense, yes. But the hosting of that meeting was given a (rather contrived) explanation from her point of view: she felt sympathy towards a specialist nobody listened to. Possibly she had personal experiences on that? The conference could then serve as a cause rather than an effect of her interests in an obscure field of engineering sciences.
As for Picard knowing his ship's technology better than Crusher, I rather doubt that was really the case during the first season of TNG. Picard was an archaeologist first and foremost, and had spent most of his career aboard a single starship, without incentives to study the specs of other ship types every few years in anticipation of a transfer. He'd learn by doing, and by relying on an XO who would have been studying those specs intensively, even obsessively, in order to earn his position.
As for Crusher's "one ace in the sleeve", it actually was anything but. For the most part, she did what a good captain should do: set tactical goals, which her trained underlings then turned into practice. She didn't micromanage (beyond some social micromanaging with the wussy temp tactical officer), or use her insufficient knowledge of the specs of the equipment. Her command decisions were general in nature: evacuate as many as possible; escape from the Borg ship, but not all the way to Earth; go back for the final away teams (for which she formulates a plan by consulting her veteran tactical officer); and then pull a desperate trick out of her sleeve when the plan fails.
It wasn't all that good a trick, either. Her classic "if you have a hammer, all problems become nails" approach left them stuck inside a star when the Borg didn't do quite as she wanted. That's for her lack of experience: no Plan B. Good thing her underlings came up with one.
Troi or Wesley could have made those command decisions, and quite well carried the day, with even less technological knowledge. Picard probably wouldn't have put them in command, though. We don't have to assume Crusher was technologically savvy, but we do have to assume that Picard had some reason to think she would be capable of the tactical thinking she displayed.
And that does sound more plausible than it might at first thought. Unlike any other CMO save McCoy, she spent a lot of time on the bridge, sometimes even during combat engagements acting as a "VIP paramedic" for the bridge staff. She phasered down enemies, attended battlefield away teams, and hobnobbed with a former (?) lover high up in the command chain.
So, IMHO, "Descent" as such was more plausible than it sounds. It's just that the timeline of things is so bass-ackward: Crusher takes the command exam as the result of having been in command; and she gets interested in engineering as the result of organizing an engineering conference. A different order of episodes would have helped quite a bit, not requiring anything else besides prescient writers...
Timo Saloniemi
3D Master
Rear Admiral
Brennyren said:
I think you mean "interested," though I'd be the last to deny that Crusher is interesting! (I'm sorry, I couldn't resist....) And Crusher certainly might be interested in other fields than medicine. She's an intelligent and curious woman, and I'm sure she has a wide range of interests. But being interested doesn't make her an engineer. And other than "Suspicions," there's no evidence at all to even suggest that she has interest in engineering. It's not as if we ever saw her assembling gadgets in her free time.
As far as her needing to have engineering knowledge to take the Bridge Officers' Test, well, that doesn't make her an engineer, either. I had to take a first aid course when I was a Girl Scout leader, but no one would suggest that made me any sort of expert on medicine.
So I still think her knowledge of engineering wasn't likely to be vast, and I still think her hosting an engineering conference was bizarre. (Come to think of it, she didn't even invite any of the engineering staff! How rude!
Deanna had to learn the Enterprise inside out. If she took bridge officer test, and she did, then she has enough engineering knowledge to command the ship, plain and simple - and if Crusher hosted an engineering convention, then she knows even more than Deanna Troi. I don't give a damn if she's not actual engineer, you don't need to be one in order to command a ship, and she knows more than enough.
The main complaint about Crusher taking command seems to be that her job wouldn't include any command capacity and is based primarily on looking at modern militaries. Yet I would imagine that Starfleet is also an offshoot of agencies like NASA.
In the film Apollo 13, there is a big deal made about the fact that the crewmember who got sick was the guy who was responsible for the docking procedure. Everyone was worried that the backup guy wouldn't be able to dock the sections of Apollo.
Yet, in the commentary by Jim Lovell (I believe) he states that this was made up. In fact, each member of the crew received training on all areas of the vessel. With only 3 crew members, everyone had to know everyone elses job. Even today, the shuttle flies with only 6-7 crewmembers. I'd imagine that most shuttle crewmembers can sucessfully manage most shuttle operations.
Coming from that tradition as well as a military tradition, there is no reason why Starfleet wouldn't require all of its personnel to have a working knowledge of all areas of the ship including any chosen specialties.
If there is a problem with an episode, I'd say it's the one where Deanna Troi needs to have the antimatter containment field explained to her.
In the film Apollo 13, there is a big deal made about the fact that the crewmember who got sick was the guy who was responsible for the docking procedure. Everyone was worried that the backup guy wouldn't be able to dock the sections of Apollo.
Yet, in the commentary by Jim Lovell (I believe) he states that this was made up. In fact, each member of the crew received training on all areas of the vessel. With only 3 crew members, everyone had to know everyone elses job. Even today, the shuttle flies with only 6-7 crewmembers. I'd imagine that most shuttle crewmembers can sucessfully manage most shuttle operations.
Coming from that tradition as well as a military tradition, there is no reason why Starfleet wouldn't require all of its personnel to have a working knowledge of all areas of the ship including any chosen specialties.
If there is a problem with an episode, I'd say it's the one where Deanna Troi needs to have the antimatter containment field explained to her.
Normally I'm not a fan of quoting long passages and then following them up with only a short comment, but I really couldn't think of any way to say this without quoting your entire argument/explication. What I wanted to say was, this is probably one of the best breakdowns of Crusher's qualifications and her performance in command that I've ever read, and in fact it does make me reconsider my opinion of Crusher being in command in this situation.
At this point, I think I'd have to say that I've changed my mind to some degree. I suppose that now my objection to Crusher being in command in this situation is less about Crusher being in command than it is about Picard not being in command. He went down to the planet to do a job any idiot could have done, when he really should have stayed on the ship against the possibility (the probability!) of attack.
As far as the timing of events being bass-ackward -- you're so right! A different order of episodes would have done a lot to help things make sense.
And your point about what you need to know to host a conference made me laugh out loud! (And wish I'd thought of it.) Yes, hosting a conference is an art form in itself.
Mmm, this crow actually tastes pretty good when you get used to it,
Brennyren
No, of course you don't have to be an engineer in order to command a ship. I never said you did. What I said was that I thought it would have been more probable to have an engineering conference hosted by an engineer, or at least someone we knew to be interested in engineering. (Though Timo actually had a pretty good answer to that, too.
)My primary objection to Crusher being in command in "Descent" was, and is, not that she's not the engineer Picard is -- I don't think Picard is much of an engineer at all -- but that she's not the captain Picard is. She's not the tactician Picard is. She doesn't have the battle experience Picard does.
Picard really should have stayed on the ship. That's his job. Waving a tricorder around? Not so much.
Brennyren
The entire procedure of offloading so much personnel is iffy to begin with, really. These guys and gals are out there to detect the proximity of the Borg with their tricorders, not the trail of them. This means they will have to be close to where the Borg are at that particular moment, which means they will have to cover the maximum area in minimum time. OTOH, they expect to cover a circular area 20 km in radius only.
A single team in shuttlecraft, flying below the indicated 100 meters, would do the job far better than a hundred teams on foot. By all means, have some surface teams standing by - but do not send them on this futile search that a single recce flight would quickly complete, by visually spotting that single building on the planet.
It might be possible to squeeze some lemonade out of this one, too. Let's look at the exact dialogue first:
Now let's look at the psychology of the situation. O'Brien is the technical expert here, but a lowly rating rather than an officer. It's his position to advise, but in a way that makes the officers look clever.
It is also in his political interests to have Troi in command rather than the annoying rogue Ro. Moments earlier, he swiftly orchestrated for the command to fall on Troi's lap. And Ro in turn hates his guts, and those of Troi, for that.
Now, there's every chance that Troi is capable of understanding a core breach. It's unlikely that she understands the phenomenon that is causing the core breach, though, which is why O'Brien is explaining that part to her. Troi's question could be perfectly valid, then:
"Okay, so now you have explained that this phenomenon could cause a core breach if it reaches fifteen percent. Now what does that mean in practical terms? How much time do we have left, and what preventive steps can we take?"
Ro would simply deliberately misunderstand Troi's question and retort with a venomous jab that makes Troi look like an idiot. And Troi's closeup as response to that retort would not be "Ohmigod, I didn't realize it was that bad, we're all gonna die!" but rather "Oh shit, my authority has been challenged! How do I get out of this? I've never done anything like this! (Um, and the ship is exploding, too.)".
Of course, other explanations are possible as well. The delivery of our actors is always Shakespeare-perfect, but realistically it would be possible for Troi to simply miss the words "core breach" in the middle of all that technobabble. An average head would certainly be spinning after that tirade, so even if O'Brien had said "the ship will explode" outright, Troi might still need to ask "Which means?".
Timo Saloniemi
A single team in shuttlecraft, flying below the indicated 100 meters, would do the job far better than a hundred teams on foot. By all means, have some surface teams standing by - but do not send them on this futile search that a single recce flight would quickly complete, by visually spotting that single building on the planet.
..it's the one where Deanna Troi needs to have the antimatter containment field explained to her.
It might be possible to squeeze some lemonade out of this one, too. Let's look at the exact dialogue first:
Now let's look at the psychology of the situation. O'Brien is the technical expert here, but a lowly rating rather than an officer. It's his position to advise, but in a way that makes the officers look clever.
It is also in his political interests to have Troi in command rather than the annoying rogue Ro. Moments earlier, he swiftly orchestrated for the command to fall on Troi's lap. And Ro in turn hates his guts, and those of Troi, for that.
Now, there's every chance that Troi is capable of understanding a core breach. It's unlikely that she understands the phenomenon that is causing the core breach, though, which is why O'Brien is explaining that part to her. Troi's question could be perfectly valid, then:
"Okay, so now you have explained that this phenomenon could cause a core breach if it reaches fifteen percent. Now what does that mean in practical terms? How much time do we have left, and what preventive steps can we take?"
Ro would simply deliberately misunderstand Troi's question and retort with a venomous jab that makes Troi look like an idiot. And Troi's closeup as response to that retort would not be "Ohmigod, I didn't realize it was that bad, we're all gonna die!" but rather "Oh shit, my authority has been challenged! How do I get out of this? I've never done anything like this! (Um, and the ship is exploding, too.)".
Of course, other explanations are possible as well. The delivery of our actors is always Shakespeare-perfect, but realistically it would be possible for Troi to simply miss the words "core breach" in the middle of all that technobabble. An average head would certainly be spinning after that tirade, so even if O'Brien had said "the ship will explode" outright, Troi might still need to ask "Which means?".
Timo Saloniemi
Similar threads
