My one fear is that if he leaves the Enterprise he will be forgotten or bumped off by the writers. However, for the sake of his character, I want him to leave, to get his own command. I would rather have him show up from time to time in a TNG book as captain of the Challenger instead of dwelling in engineering, not growing or changing, not experiencing the human adventure, and isn't the human adventure what Trek is all about?
I have never understood this idea that becoming a starship captain is the only worthwhile goal for an officer and that anything less is a failure. That's completely unrealistic. Only a very small percentage of officers can ever become captains (there's only one to a ship, after all), and there's no reason why every single officer would
want to. Command is merely one specialty out of many. And captains would be useless without their first officers, science officers, engineers, CMOs, ops managers, helm officers, counselors, etc. There are many personally and professionally fulfilling command tracks in Starfleet other than captaincy.
Indeed, Geordi said as much in
Q & A, as I recall. He recognized that being the chief engineer of the most advanced and powerful starship in the fleet was anything but a career dead end, that it was in fact a culmination. He'd already reached the most fulfilling possible level in his chosen career. He already
had his own ship, in a far more direct and hands-on way than a captain has a ship. Moving to a captaincy wouldn't be progressing forward, it would just be giving up the role where he's most satisfied.
I never said Geordi was a failure. I said he was stagnant, primarily regarding his character development. Giving him a promotion to captain would up the stakes for him, force the writers to present him with more challenges. Also, he could get to be an instructor, a mentor of sorts. There's a lot of interesting places a Captain LaForge can go that Chief Engineer LaForge has not, can't, or the writers so far have not allowed him to (on the show, movies, or in the novels).
He's pretty much been doing the same thing for 20 plus years, which can be 'realistic' however I wonder how realistic on the same ship. Even on the Enterprise how much focus has he been given to be a miracleworker? Has he ever had to fight for his job, has he ever had to face his own Shelby? He's just going along to get along, more background scenery than anything. I hate to say it, but a token.
To be honest, in Trek being captain is a big deal. The captains are generally the anchors for each show and/or each series. I don't see a Captain LaForge getting his own series, however, it would put him in rare air. Plus with the dearth of talented, veteran officers out there since the events of Destiny I could see him at least being offered an XO spot or perhaps even command, maybe of an SCE vessel.
Why is it that every other TNG character has had an arc, even the similarly marginalized Dr. Crusher, except Geordi? Everyone else has changed, yet Geordi remains "content". Safe, reliable, static. One could argue that there are people like that in real life, but this fiction. And I have to wonder if the writers are content to let Geordi remain content because they don't have any feel or interest for his character. Christopher said Geordi reached the culmination of his career, well its pretty early to have done that for him. So what's going to do for the rest of his life? How can he truly know it's the culmination-which sounds so final and dead end-if we don't at least see him wonder about other possibilities, which we never really have?
Heck, even Kadohata seemed to get more character development and an arc during her brief time in the relaunch novels than Geordi has during nearly his entire time on either the show or in the books. And other Lit. characters like Ch'Thane or Vaughn have definitely been given more character development.
The captain thing is just a mechanism for him to grow as a character. With the larger point presented about being stagnant or growing in any particular position, I agree with. However, the way Geordi has been handled over the years would lead me to believe that the writers haven't done much to give him an inner life which would make him less stagnant no matter what job he holds. It's not being captain or he's nothing at all. If Geordi remains an engineer, which is likely, at least give him new friends, new lovers, new interests, new adventures, and ways he can contribute to Enterprise and Starfleet in general in unique ways. Have him become more of a influence in engineering circles across the Fleet, an authority in something. In short, do more with him.
