Destroyed Starships
- Thread starter UncleRogi
- Start date
Excuse me, but what exactly do you think Harris did? The Excalibur was guilty of nothing more than participating in the wargames exercise as ordered.
And while it's no real excuse Tracy in his own way could have become unhinged by his entire crew dying just as Matt Decker became unhinged from watching his own crew die.
I hated when the Excalibur was "destroyed".. It is my favorite named starship!!!
And I love the scenario of a deep space encounter of a derelict sister ship and the mystery of what happened to them is yet to unfold. I plan on writing a mission for STO when it becomes live with this similar idea!
And I love the scenario of a deep space encounter of a derelict sister ship and the mystery of what happened to them is yet to unfold. I plan on writing a mission for STO when it becomes live with this similar idea!
^^ Me too. In that vein I once wrote a TOS era story where the Enterprise comes upon the weakened distress beacon of a 22 year predecessor Starfleet ship, the Atlantis, and find a drifting and tumbling hulk full of dead personnel. They then trace the ship's drift back to an unknown star system.
Essentially it's a rework of the TNG episode "Arsenal Of Freedom" but told through a TOS sensibility and called "The Forgotten Merchants."
Essentially it's a rework of the TNG episode "Arsenal Of Freedom" but told through a TOS sensibility and called "The Forgotten Merchants."
Expo67
Captain
Actually, Ron Tracey held the rank of Captain.
I really think that Ronald Tracey suffered a nervous breakdown because of the loss of the Exeter crew. He was unable to prevent such a disaster from happening, let alone save his crew.
That kind of tragedy is enough to make any leader have a mental breakdown, and commit very irrational acts.
What happened on Omega IV was proof positive of that.
I'd think it more influential on poor Tracey's mind that he got stranded on a hostile planet and attacked by a ruthless army of barbarians. He "hardened" in face of the ordeal, and went on self-defense mode - one he was unable to ditch even when Kirk arrived and offered him a possible alternative course of action, an evacuation.
He had rational and emotional grounds for rejecting the evacuation, of course: he believed it would kill him, and he had gotten protective of the Kohms. That's not particularly insane, that's the sort of behavior one might expect of any military commander similarly stranded. Him being a starship skipper gave his position an "unearthly" twist, though: he was so far from home, with so much leeway for his command, that he would have been in a much better position to defy HQ orders than any of today's field commanders and walk away with it. Good old Captains Drake or Cook could probably have survived a similar incident, careerwise, back in their day...
Drake more than Cook, I guess, because back in his days the Royal Navy wasn't a particularly unified service, and all skippers weren't expected to conform to the same professional mold (heck, they didn't even have uniforms yet!). Whether Kirk's Starfleet called for uniform high standards, we don't know; Kirk himself was quite willing to speak of standing apart from some of his colleagues, of being a special breed. But that "special breed" supposedly included all the starship captains and only excluded the skippers of lesser vessels... I guess Tracey failed to meet some expectations there.
Still, not a completely subpar performance. Tracey wanted to get Kirk out of the way of "doing the right thing". Kirk did the same to Commodore Decker on another occasion. And it was Kirk got his Starfleet opponent killed, while Tracey ultimately didn't, even if it wasn't for the lack of effort...
Timo Saloniemi
He had rational and emotional grounds for rejecting the evacuation, of course: he believed it would kill him, and he had gotten protective of the Kohms. That's not particularly insane, that's the sort of behavior one might expect of any military commander similarly stranded. Him being a starship skipper gave his position an "unearthly" twist, though: he was so far from home, with so much leeway for his command, that he would have been in a much better position to defy HQ orders than any of today's field commanders and walk away with it. Good old Captains Drake or Cook could probably have survived a similar incident, careerwise, back in their day...
Drake more than Cook, I guess, because back in his days the Royal Navy wasn't a particularly unified service, and all skippers weren't expected to conform to the same professional mold (heck, they didn't even have uniforms yet!). Whether Kirk's Starfleet called for uniform high standards, we don't know; Kirk himself was quite willing to speak of standing apart from some of his colleagues, of being a special breed. But that "special breed" supposedly included all the starship captains and only excluded the skippers of lesser vessels... I guess Tracey failed to meet some expectations there.
Still, not a completely subpar performance. Tracey wanted to get Kirk out of the way of "doing the right thing". Kirk did the same to Commodore Decker on another occasion. And it was Kirk got his Starfleet opponent killed, while Tracey ultimately didn't, even if it wasn't for the lack of effort...
Timo Saloniemi
