Disabled Captain?
- Thread starter JeffinOakland
- Start date
The problem with showing a Captain with a disability is that this idea isn't all-inclusive. There's a cut-off, where people whose disabilities are such could never get to be a starship Captain, even should they have attained the rank itself, in some other discipline of the service. Inevitably, there's going to be exclusion, of some sort. I would prefer it that a STAR TREK show's Captain be free of impairments, for any number of reasons. But other, occasional ship's Captains that were encountered, throughout the series could have a disability - just to score some PC points with the audience, or whatever.
Some people never watched Ironside. 
Problem with that is, Geordi wanted to have normal vision, he spoke of it on more than one occasion. Geordi wanted to be "fixed."
The reason he choose not to go with Dr. Pulaski's option was there was a chance of failure, and he would have been rendered incapable of vision even with the visor.
It would be possible to have a Captain with a disability that was obvious, but didn't interfere with his/her ability to be Captain. Someone brought up the character of Ironsides. Captain Picard was physically inferior to Commander Riker, yet Picard was the Captain, In many episodes Riker was his leg man, Riker when on away missions, not Picard. Picard would often never leave the bridge deck.
Picard was captain owing to his knowledge and experience, not his ability to duke it out with a Gorn. In Starship Mine, Picard fought his opponents using trickery, surprise and guile, not physical prowess.
So, could there be a captain who was wheelchair bound and incapable of walking?
Yes.
I was thinking that a disabled captain could play out pretty much like the originally intended Picard/Riker dynamic, before they decided that Stewart needed to be in on the action more.
Stewart was in his late 40's and early 50's for STNG. He's 5'9 and slender. Hardly a bruiser. I thought some of the more action-oriented stuff involving Picard was misplaced and out of character. He was meant more of a leader and thinker. A renaissance man in space.
I want to see Prime Captain Pike fight the Gorn and just run him over with his wheelchair.
Speaking as a person with a disability, and on behalf of several friends in the same boat, I can honestly say this attitude you describe is rare. All the disabled people I know--myself included--would give anything to be free of our disabilities. My cerebral palsy in an affliction I live with, but doesn't define who I am. I'd like to see a disabled character in Star Trek who simply lives with their condition rather than the heavy-handed and insulting way it was handled in "Melora".
Or better yet, have the opportunity to run over the Gorn in his wheelchair...and choose not to.
Perhaps. I suppose it's more common among "my people"
Yeah, I see what you mean about Melora.
I've argues this point elsewhere and found it's a very hard case to make in the specific without causing offence. Tokenism is inherently very far from being inclusive, it worked for TOS precisely because it was new and challenging in and of itself. Nowadays it is seen as the norm and far from being progressive in and of itself, regardless of the group being represented.
I'd love to see more disabled representation, provided the character(s) involved were well written in their own right and not just a vehicle for getting disability onto the screen.
Having said that, even 24th century medical technology is far from perfect and whilst most conditions can be cured there remain those that require external compensation, or remain at least partially debilitating. We've seen several such examples and clearly starfleet does not discriminate unnecessarily. We would by necessity really be looking at those whose conditions:
a) were beyond a true cure but:
b) were within the means of 24th medicine to meaningfully compensate for
As has been pointed out elsewhere the role of most starfleet officers involves physical activity of some description, with the majority being portrayed as being at the very least of above average fitness levels. Reasonable adjustments may be made under controlled conditions, such as crew quarters, work stations, etc, but much of starfleet's role require it's personnel operate in uncontrolled conditions, particularly on away missions or during combat.
The decision to recruit a disabled officer may well require that such factors be risk assessed based on the likely requirements of their particular role rather than something more generic.
Well, no. When Crusher offered cures for the pain associated with VISOR use in "Encounter at Farpoint", LaForge said the cures (painkillers, lobotomy) would reduce his superman abilities, and he wanted to be a superman. When Pulaski casually mentioned he could do miracles to LaForge's actual blindness in "Loud as a Whisper", LaForge again shoots them down one by one. First, more inconspicuous visual aids because they would not be as good as the VISOR (even though still worlds above the vision of mere mortals). Then, the installation of real human eyes, because "he would be giving up a lot" in an irreversible procedure.
There never was any risk associated with any of the options. And LaForge never had a disability - he had a superability, a type of vision vastly preferable to the human one (save for the pain). It was Picard, Riker, Crusher, Worf and even Data who had a disability there. Why didn't Starfleet fire them and only accept people with VISORs so that they wouldn't risk the ship with their inferior vision?
Timo Saloniemi
Well, the episode where LaForge and the Romulan centurion has the centurion flabbergasted that LaForge was allowed to be born on account of his blindness, LaForge, in his turn, is flabbergasted at the Romulan being flabbergasted.
Later on, La Forge laments in The Masterpiece Society episode that he had a contribution to make and wouldn't have been allowed to have been born in their eugenics-utopia.
Over in DS9, Bashir is convinced that he got his 'adjustments' because 'he wasn't good enough' until his mother chips in with the parents perspective.
Eugenics is strongly disparaged in Trek and Kahn is an obvious warning against the hubris that follows on from striving for perfection. Disability is in fact championed in many instances as a roundabout way of affording new perspectives and for being a crucible for innovation.
Later on, La Forge laments in The Masterpiece Society episode that he had a contribution to make and wouldn't have been allowed to have been born in their eugenics-utopia.
Over in DS9, Bashir is convinced that he got his 'adjustments' because 'he wasn't good enough' until his mother chips in with the parents perspective.
Eugenics is strongly disparaged in Trek and Kahn is an obvious warning against the hubris that follows on from striving for perfection. Disability is in fact championed in many instances as a roundabout way of affording new perspectives and for being a crucible for innovation.
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