Gen: Was the risk too risky? Harriman vs Kirk

[Cadet49]

I was re-watching Generations recently, and I had always thought Harriman was being wimpy at the beginning by not wanting to charge in on a rescue mission to save those two ships trapped in the energy ribbon, but now that I look on it, I wonder if he might have been right about being cautious about not taking the Ent-B near the ribbon, considering the ship's condition.

As he told Kirk, the starship was totally unprepared to launch a rescue - it didn't have the equipment it needed, because it was on a press showing, not a mission. You wouldn't send firefighters into a raging fire without proper safety equipment. Harriman saying that they were not capable of launching a rescue at that point was actually true, in a lot of ways...

When Harriman did listen to Kirk's advice to take the Enterprise in closer, the ship became trapped, and would have been destroyed with all its crew (and the civilian guests) if someone hadn't been able to think up a way to get it free (thank goodness for Scotty!)

Yes, it had been established on the show that it is the duty of a Starfleet vessel to protect Federation citizens and those in need, but what if such a rescue attempt pretty much guarantees the destruction of everyone? Even Picard was forced to retreat from some rescue operations when the risk to his ship became to great... a captain also has to protect the lives of his crew.

In a fire, fire fighters are sent into burning buildings, risking their lives to save lives ... but would you, as their chief, send them into that burning house if they had just come from a parade, where they were driving a float with little or no proper equipment to fight a fire with? - That is the dilemma that Harriman faced - not an easy decision...

Also, I remember being shocked when I first saw the movie that none of his command crew offered up any suggestions to help him save the ships once they committed to the rescue. Whenever Kirk faced a dangerous situation, he always had Spock, Scott, etc to offer suggestions, as did Picard with his crew, and the other Trek captains. All Harriman's officers did were report what was happening. Where was his science officer? Where was his engineer? The crew did not look like young cadets, so why were they not offering up any ideas? Harriman was desperately trying to come up with one solution after another, and finally had to turn to Kirk and co. for help when his ideas didn't work. Where was his crew support?

So, I think Harriman was faced with a really touch choice ... was attempting a rescue too risky? Should he have trusted his initial instincts?

Opinions?

 

[Captrek]

Things have a way of working out allright when Jim Kirk is involved. We don’t know whether Harriman would have agreed to Kirk’s risky plan if it had come from somebody other than Kirk.

 

[Solarbaby]

The press were there when they got the alert. How would it look to the FNS if they didn't help the EL Aurians?

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

 

[DonIago]

One could argue that Harriman had justification for not mounting a rescue...but I think that would have marked the end of his career with Starfleet, or at least he probably would have been assigned to a much lower-profile ship while the brass tried their best to forget he existed.

"Risk is our business."

Of course, the presence of the press certainly wouldn't help anything either.

I haven't read any of the published works that follow-up on Harriman, but I would very much like to.

 

[sonak]

Well, Starfleet ships pretty much have a duty to help civilians in distress if they're at all able. Since the conditions set up had the Enterprise B as the only ship in range(preposterous as that as considering that they were supposed to be close to Earth), it was their responsibility.







As Harriman correctly said, "Well then, I guess it's up to us."

 

[Captrek]

Well, Starfleet ships pretty much have a duty to help civilians in distress if they're at all able. Since the conditions set up had the Enterprise B as the only ship in range(preposterous as that as considering that they were supposed to be close to Earth), it was their responsibility.

You make it sound like it’s black-and-white, “if civilians are in distress, you must make every effort to save them no matter what.”

The captain’s duty is to evaluate the situation, consider factors like the danger to the civilians, the chances of a successful rescue, the risk to the ship, the ship’s personnel and the ship’s current mission, etc., and after an intelligent consideration of the pros and cons, make the decision. You can imagine the consequences for Starfleet — and consequently the Federation — if intelligent risk assessment were removed from the process.

 

[Timo]

On the issue of why Harriman received no expert advice from his own staff, I could easily see two explanations, working in tandem:

1) He had no staff. As pointed out, this was not a mission, but a tour: the skeleton team of officers and crew that were making the ship move might not have been capable of doing anything more. There'd certainly be no need for having a Science Officer aboard; OTOH, all the engineering genius aboard might be needed for tackling the issue of keeping the woefully understaffed ship moving at all.

2) He did ask for advice from Kirk. It would not be appropriate for others to chime in at that point. And appropriateness would be the governing aspect there, because the factual side of things would be so thin: there were no sensible suggestions to be made. Kirk didn't really contribute anything beyond a (probably wrong) command decision, and Harriman and his crew would have known that there was nothing to add to that decision, no tricks to be pulled, no need to repeat the risks involved.

On the issue of whether to attempt rescue or not, let's remember that Pike flat out refused to attempt one in "The Cage", citing too slim chances of success. It never really was the duty of a naval vessel to respond to a randomly recovered message-in-a-bottle, even if the SOS was genuine beyond doubt; the rescuees might no longer be alive, or the attempt to locate them might not be within the endurance margins of the ship, or it might even be politically unwise to venture to the coordinates given in the SOS.

Timo Saloniemi