Did Pike replace Garth as Fleet Captain?

[JonnyQuest037]

(Mods: I do some "What if...?" type speculation in this thread. If you feel like this is crossing over into story idea territory, feel free to move it over to the Fan Fiction forum.)

Over in the "Ranks in Starfleet" thread, it was mentioned that we only hear of two Fleet Captains in all of Trek: Christopher Pike and Garth of Izar. "The Menagerie" features this exchange between Kirk and Commodore Mendez about Pike:

MENDEZ: You ever met Chris Pike?
KIRK: When he was promoted to Fleet Captain.
MENDEZ: About your age. Big, handsome man, vital, active.
KIRK: I took over the Enterprise from him. Spock served with him for several years.

So presumably Pike was promoted to Fleet Captain around the same time that Kirk took over the Enterprise (although I suppose that you could interpret that there were some distance between those two events). So it was some time around 2263-2265, or 1-3 years before TOS, if you're going by the official Chronology.

As far as I can tell, "Whom Gods Destroy" gave no real timeframe for Garth's crew mutinying and him being committed to Elba II. No lines like "His crew mutinied three years ago" or anything like that. Garth is called a "new inmate" at the beginning of the episode, but all we know for sure is that he was committed to Elba II sometime since the Enterprise's last visit there, whenever that was. Heck, we don't even know for sure if Elba II was the first facility that Garth was sent to.

I get the impression from the way Kirk & others speak about him that Garth being committed is a relatively recent thing. Their references to how Garth ended up at Elba II have an air of disbelief about them, as if the news is still sinking in and they can't quite believe it. I did a search on the words "mutiny" and "mutinied" over on Star Trek Script Search, and in "The Tholian Web," we have this exchange:

CHEKOV: Has there ever been a mutiny on a starship before?
SPOCK: Absolutely no record of such an occurrence, Ensign.

That's only a short time before "Whom Gods Destroy," so maybe Garth's crew mutinied very recently, sometime between stardate 5693.2 (TTW) and stardate 5718.3 (WGD). It's possible that word of the mutiny of Garth's crew hadn't reached the Enterprise yet at the time of "The Tholian Web," but from what we hear in "The Menagerie" and other episodes, it seems like subspace chatter makes rumors travel pretty quickly.

But what if Pike's promotion years before was to fill a specific opening, one that was left by Garth? We don't know how many Fleet Captains Starfleet has, but presumably it isn't that many. If Garth went crazy and his crew mutinied to stop him, that would definitely be the sort of thing that Starfleet would want to sweep under the rug very quickly. And what better way to do that than by promoting a still relatively young Starfleet Captain, one who's "big, handsome, vital, and active," (great for PR purposes) but one who's expressed doubts about staying in the job? The good looking Christopher Pike would be the perfect candidate to put a trustworthy face on Starfleet again. This would also put a definite timeframe to Garth's insanity and his crew's mutiny.

Heck, maybe Spock's line "Absolutely no record of such an occurrence, Ensign" in "The Tholian Web" indicates that there was some sort of cover-up following Garth's actions, one that wasn't generally known even within Starfleet. Maybe the truth came out sometime between TTW and WGD, and that was why Garth was committed to Elba II. Or maybe Spock was admonishing Chekov, in a "We don't ever talk about that" sort of way. I'd have to watch that scene in "The Tholian Web" again to see if Nimoy's delivery might support that interpretation. But we do know from "The Menagerie" that Starfleet can keep certain things pretty secret, even from its Starship Captains. Maybe there's a bigger, more sinister story behind Garth's commitment to Elba II than we ever realized.

What do you think? Does my theory fit with what we know, or is there some flaw that I've overlooked?

 

[johnnybear]

In the James Blish novel of Star Trek Five, he places Whom Gods before Tholian Web and in that way when Chekov asks Spock about any mutinies aboard Federation Starships, the Vulcan answers him in the positive and quotes Captain Garth as the only instance! Garth may have been taken off the active roster because of his injuries and mental collapse and Pike, who they felt they couldn't remove from the active list could have taken over that position to fill the void!
JB

 

[JonnyQuest037]

In the James Blish novel of Star Trek Five, he places Whom Gods before Tholian Web and in that way when Chekov asks Spock about any mutinies aboard Federation Starships, the Vulcan answers him in the positive and quotes Captain Garth as the only instance!

Interesting! I didn't know that.

 

[Phaser Two]

In the James Blish novel of Star Trek Five, he places Whom Gods before Tholian Web and in that way when Chekov asks Spock about any mutinies aboard Federation Starships, the Vulcan answers him in the positive and quotes Captain Garth as the only instance! Garth may have been taken off the active roster because of his injuries and mental collapse and Pike, who they felt they couldn't remove from the active list could have taken over that position to fill the void!
JB

That’s fascinating. I want to read all the Blish novelisations now.

 

[johnnybear]

I read them all in the late seventies and apart from a few minor differences from the episodes they are brilliant!
JB

 

[F. King Daniel]

Definitely read the "Doomsday Machine" adaptation, it has a different ending!

 

[johnnybear]

Definitely read the "Doomsday Machine" adaptation, it has a different ending!

Plus it ain't Commodore Matt Decker, it is Brand Decker! Think the television name is better by far!
JB

 

[Timo]

The idea of Garth's mutiny being very recent isn't contradicted by anything specific, but supposedly Garth ended up on Elba II because facilities similar to Tantalus V had first failed to cure him of his criminality. How many hours would Dr. van Gelder spend with Garth before shutting down the neutralizer and declaring him incurable?

On the other hand, there's no particular reason to think Garth's crew ever mutinied. That's his choice of words, and hear him out on the issue of "one could say"...

In contrast, starship COs going cuckoo is basically a biweekly event. I doubt Starfleet would bother with special conspiracies on such cases. There's a stock response as per "Court Martial": sweep it under the rug and retire the poor sap without including the word "dishonorable" in his discharge.

(Far be it from me to shoot down a promising conspiracy theory, though! It's just that there are a couple of relatively obvious alternatives.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ChallengerHK]

One thing that makes it difficult to talk about this is that, as far as I recall, they've never defined what a Fleet Captain is (correct me if I'm wrong). At various points in history Fleet Captain has been a brevet promotion and an award, similar to receiving a medal. Starfleet seems to be using it as a position, but I don't think there's any hard data on that. Am I wrong?

 

[Valenti]

Elba II seems to be a long term facility of last resort and highly secretive for top notch people.

 

[Timo]

Fleet Captain is only ever mentioned once in all of Star Trek - it's what Chris Pike was "promoted" into, at some unknown timepoint that coincides with Jim Kirk meeting him. One can be promoted to a rank or a position; one would expect the former to be associated with rank insignia, but we never see Pike wear anything else besides Lieutenant braid in his "The Cage" appearance and its "The Menagerie" recapping.

Garth isn't of Fleet Captain rank - he's instead called a Starship Fleet Captain twice, which may be a position, or a descriptive term, but doesn't sound like a rank at all. That is, Fleet Captain is unlikely to be the short form of Starship Fleet Captain, because the short form would be more likely to be used for the despicable Garth by the informal Cory than for the beloved Pike by the admiring Mendez. (And never mind that both users are in fact utter fakes...)

Might be something largely honorary, as posited in this thread, and indeed even unique. Perhaps similar to Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy today. Might be relatively common, too, though - it's not as if we ever saw all that many Junior Lieutenants in TOS or Commodores in TNG, but that doesn't mean or even suggest they wouldn't have existed in quantity.

As for Elba II, I don't see the "secretive" aspect there. Spock mentions changes "since our last visit", as if it were a routine matter for the lowly Enterprise to drop by every now and then. Does Kirk go there every other year to gloat or what? It's not as if he could be in charge of delivering patients, because that's the very thing that has changed since their last visit - an additional inmate. So somebody else frequents the place, too...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ChallengerHK]

One can be promoted to a rank or a position

I would argue that 1) one is promoted to a rank, 2) one is assigned to a position, and 3) both could happen simultaneously. So, "James Kirk was promoted to Captain and assigned to command the USS Enterprise," but not "James Kirk was promoted to command the Enterprise."

Which does not at all mean that that's how Starfleet would use the phrase :-)

 

[ChallengerHK]

One can be promoted to a rank or a position

I would argue that 1) one is promoted to a rank, 2) one is assigned to a position, and 3) both could happen simultaneously. So, "James Kirk was promoted to Captain and assigned to command the USS Enterprise," but not "James Kirk was promoted to command the Enterprise."

Which does not at all mean that that's how Starfleet would use the phrase :-)

 

[Timo]

Getting a better position would amount to "a promotion in practice" - and we do know that Starfleet uses the word that way, or at least that Starfleet personnel use it that way, what with O'Brien by his own words being "promoted" to DS9 despite not changing his rank/rating insignia.

What other examples are there of this? I'm sure I'm missing a few.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MAGolding]

my post # 32 in this thread:

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/how...ctions-are-in-the-same-timeline.293451/page-2

Discusses mutinies and acts of mutiny in various star trek episodes.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

How many hours would Dr. van Gelder spend with Garth before shutting down the neutralizer and declaring him incurable?

Well, hopefully none, since Kirk shut down that whole operation some years before.

On the other hand, there's no particular reason to think Garth's crew ever mutinied. That's his choice of words, and hear him out on the issue of "one could say"...

Kirk uses the word "mutiny" immediately after Garth does.

GARTH: My crew mutinied. The first use I will make of the Enterprise is to hunt them down and punish them for that.
KIRK: The crew of the Enterprise will also mutiny.

And Spock later says that Garth's crew disobeyed his orders. Sure sounds like a mutiny to me.

GARTH: Agreed. Actually they were quite harmless, and they made me whole when I was maimed and dying. And in my gratitude, I offered them the galaxy. They rejected me, and I condemned them to death.
SPOCK: How could you, a Starship fleet Captain, believe that a Federation crew would blindly obey your order to destroy the entire Antos race, a people famous for their benevolence and peaceful pursuits?
GARTH: That was my only miscalculation. I had changed. I had risen above this decadent weakness which still has you in its command, by the way, Captain. My crew had not. I couldn't sway them, but my new crew, the men in this room, will obey my orders without question.

Now, you could argue that Kirk might have just been humoring the insane man, but that hardly seems like Spock's style. Spock is a stickler for the facts above all else, and he's pretty terrible at picking up hints.

So I don't think there's any question about the fact that Garth's crew did not obey his orders. Now, certainly they were justified in doing so, but the fact remains that they disobeyed his orders.

One thing that makes it difficult to talk about this is that, as far as I recall, they've never defined what a Fleet Captain is (correct me if I'm wrong). At various points in history Fleet Captain has been a brevet promotion and an award, similar to receiving a medal. Starfleet seems to be using it as a position, but I don't think there's any hard data on that. Am I wrong?

Yeah, true. Checking the transcripts, it seems that Pike was called "Fleet Captain" as his rank, while Garth was called "Starship Fleet Captain" three times. Perhaps there's a distinction between the two, but perhaps they're just two ways of describing the same position. It's tough to say without more information.

 

[Samuel]

Garth's officers turning on him I doubt would actually be considered a "mutiny". Just as if a crew of a modern U.S. Navy ship refused to follow a captain's illegal order I don't think that would be considered a "mutiny" once the captains actions were investigated and determined to be illegal.

 

[Phaser Two]

Garth's officers turning on him I doubt would actually be considered a "mutiny". Just as if a crew of a modern U.S. Navy ship refused to follow a captain's illegal order I don't think that would be considered a "mutiny" once the captains actions were investigated and determined to be illegal.

ITA and just about to post the same thing. Mutiny is on the mutineers. If they're in the right, it's not mutiny.

BTW, Kirk's own crew mutinied against him too, in TSOP. That was doubtless excused due to the influence of the spores.

 

[Timo]

Well, hopefully none, since Kirk shut down that whole operation some years before.

Well, not exactly. Dr. Adams shut himself down and thus was unavailable to keep up the good work. But supposedly van Gelder returned to lead Tantalus V so that the work that the Federation had been extremely satified with for the past twenty years could be continued, here like on all those other penal colonies following the Adams model, only without the most recent excesses of Adams. But very much with the help of the neural neutralizer chair, which we still see in action on Elba II.

I wonder if van Gelder received punitive measures for destroying the chair on Tantalus V? (Two minutes in the Mk II, perhaps?)

Kirk uses the word "mutiny" immediately after Garth does.

He also calls the madman "Lord Garth" several times. There's no indication the good captain is actually agreeing with him, though.

And Spock later says that Garth's crew disobeyed his orders. Sure sounds like a mutiny to me.

Not really, by any current definition of the word - disobeying illegal orders is not only allowed for, but actually required of, properly behaving crews.

Pretty much every hero captain has had one or more of his or her underlings politely remind the boss that the suggested course of action (the direct order given) is out of the line and need not be obeyed. Not even Spock or Tuvok have indicated that they would have made an official report of the incident, though; the skipper either backs down, or is brought down by suitably nolethal means, and Starfleet never feels a mutiny took place.

So I don't think there's any question about the fact that Garth's crew did not obey his orders. Now, certainly they were justified in doing so, but the fact remains that they disobeyed his orders.

No real disagreement there. Although one could further postulate that Garth no longer legally held starship CO status when giving the unacceptable orders, or nuances of that ilk. But this is not required for negating the significance of the disobeying on the argument about actual mutinies on starships.

Yeah, true. Checking the transcripts, it seems that Pike was called "Fleet Captain" as his rank, while Garth was called "Starship Fleet Captain" three times. Perhaps there's a distinction between the two, but perhaps they're just two ways of describing the same position. It's tough to say without more information.

Which we hopefully get when seeing Pike in the next DSC episode! Although it may not yet suffice for clarifying the issue, as we can't even tell for certain whether Pike ought to be Fleet Captain yet in 2257.

When Garth's past or present status is discussed, it is with respect to the exceptional responsibility it carries. We already know that being a starship captain carries that. And Garth is supposedly the only inmate with a Starfleet past - so pointing out his status as a starship skipper in every turn would be highly appropriate, and "Starship fleet captain" need not mean anything more than that. Basically, the point is that Garth is not everyman, not even merely a civilian skipper, and not even a regular Starfleet captain, but a captain in the exalted starship fleet. Just like Kirk!

To make Garth a bigger boss than Kirk is dramatically and functionally unnecessary, then. But certainly allowed for.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[johnnybear]

Precisely what I was thinking, a crew that disobeyed a Captain's orders to annihilate the race that had saved him after his accident, but refused to follow him in his crusade across the galaxy by giving him all their secrets, would be exonerated after an inquiry! Therefore legally it isn't a mutiny as such but a Captain who has gone insane issuing commands that do not coincide with Starfeleet and Federation policy!
JB