New Short Trek: The Trouble With Edward

[Charles Phipps]

Depends on how easy it would be to shift blame onto Larkin. The whole thing really is his fault, after all.

True but as Captain, she should have been able to contain the situation even if it meant venting the tribbles, transporting them into space, nuking the site from orbit, or having the locals warned. I think the implications are repeatedly she tried to save the Tribbles from lethal force and it made the situation so much worse.

And as Captain Kirk ended up being found guilty on Kronos for (note: he agreed with the basic argument even if it was a Kangaroo Court), he is responsible for his subordinates' actions even if they're directly against his wishes.

She didn't pass the Kobayashi Maru's test of, "Be willing to break some eggs in a bad situation." Starfleet is big on this lesson as both Wesley and Troi had to learn it--possibly because of her.

I see her as incredibly sympathetic but also in the wrong despite trying to live up to Starfleet values.

 

[Jayson1]

She might get demoted but she looks very young. She clearly has enough time to earn a second chance. Jason

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Did Lucero show any leadership qualities? It's a short episode, and we were never going to get any deep characterizations. Moreover, the whole setup was designed to show the humor of a mad scientist and a ship exploding at the seams with tribbles.

Unfortunately, Trek tends to confuse command and leadership, and the problem is evident here. The Captain gets what s/he wants, and we never see them trying to align the individuals under their direction with the goals of the mission.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Did Lucero show any leadership qualities? It's a short episode, and we were never going to get any deep characterizations. Moreover, the whole setup was designed to show the humor of a mad scientist and a ship exploding at the seams with tribbles.

Unfortunately, Trek tends to confuse command and leadership, and the problem is evident here. The Captain gets what s/he wants, and we never see them trying to align the individuals under their direction with the goals of the mission.

I think from what little we see of Lucero is that she's pretty good at team-building and everyone is enthusiastic about working with her but Edward. The problem is that she does fail to deal with a subordinate who starts off as engaged in criminal at worst/incredibly unethical at best research then outright defies her orders. He starts pretty bad then completely goes off the reservation.

And her handling of the crisis is not great.

I'd argue that she has the weakness of being too compassionate, which is something you rarely hear about a Starfleet Captain but the show does hint is something that crops up frequently (again, why so many tests about being willing to sacrifice the few for the many). Janeway or Kira would have tossed the guy in the brig and phasered them all.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

So if tribbles aren't normally "born pregnant", the ones that Cyrano Jones had on TOS must be some of these. How could he have got them? Did he stumble across some debris from the Cabot?

 

[Charles Phipps]

So if tribbles aren't normally "born pregnant", the ones that Cyrano Jones had on TOS must be some of these. How could he have got them? Did he stumble across some debris from the Cabot?

Assuming we treat the board of inquiry's statements as canon then the situation is not just losing her ship, which would be embarrassing at best, but beyond horrifying. They apparently somehow reached the planet and turned it into a wasteland that required the planet to be evacuated before somehow getting to Klingon space (probably on an evacuating ship).

There's presumably horror movies about this akin to Gremlins in the Star Trek universe.

 

[Jayson1]

Did Lucero show any leadership qualities? It's a short episode, and we were never going to get any deep characterizations. Moreover, the whole setup was designed to show the humor of a mad scientist and a ship exploding at the seams with tribbles.

Unfortunately, Trek tends to confuse command and leadership, and the problem is evident here. The Captain gets what s/he wants, and we never see them trying to align the individuals under their direction with the goals of the mission.

I felt she did. She seemed to have good communication skills and even patience with Edward even to end when she was trying to save his life. Jason

 

[Charles Phipps]

I felt she did. She seemed to have good communication skills and even patience with Edward even to end when she was trying to save his life. Jason

Were it not for the Tribblepocalypse she caused, I'd argue it'd be a valuable learning experience for stunning the occasional nutty crew member.

 

[Skipper]

I loved how Edward kept going on even after Lucero had said "This conversation's over". Because usually in Star Trek saying "This conversation's over" is some kind of verbal WMD but nevertheless, he persisted!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I'm still not seeing how Lucero deserves any blame for all of this.

As she said, Larkin disobeyed a direct order - that wasn't her fault, it was his. What was she supposed to do, throw him in the brig?

And I'm just going to hazard a guess that Larkin had already been on the Cabot for some time before Lucero was installed as captain. So you can't even blame her for hiring him, because she didn't.

I mean, I can understand the board of inquiry (what's with the uniforms, BTW?) going all WTF over what happened, but Lucero would certainly be able to provide proof on her behalf. There'd be surviving computer records from the Cabot that would prove her innocence. She didn't hire Larkin, she didn't make him do what he did, and she couldn't do anything to stop him (because by the time she found out, it was too late). Simple as that.

 

[Romulan_spy]

I'm still not seeing how Lucero deserves any blame for all of this.

As she said, Larkin disobeyed a direct order - that wasn't her fault, it was his. What was she supposed to do, throw him in the brig?

And I'm just going to hazard a guess that Larkin had already been on the Cabot for some time before Lucero was installed as captain. So you can't even blame her for hiring him, because she didn't.

I mean, I can understand the board of inquiry (what's with the uniforms, BTW?) going all WTF over what happened, but Lucero would certainly be able to provide proof on her behalf. There'd be surviving computer records from the Cabot that would prove her innocence. She didn't hire Larkin, she didn't make him do what he did, and she couldn't do anything to stop him (because by the time she found out, it was too late). Simple as that.

Certainly, Larkin is directly to blame for everything since he disobeyed a direct order and created the mutated tribbles. But the captain is always responsible for everything that happens on the ship. Also, she did not handle the incident well after the initial outbreak of tribbles. Why not have the ship automatically lock on to all tribble life signs and beam them into space? And, I don't care how fast tribbles procreate, the fact that it literally got to the point where tribbles filled the entire ship and the ship had to be abandoned, tells me that she waited too long to act. Also, she failed to prevent the tribbles from spreading the to planet too where the entire civ had to be abandoned as well.

 

[UssGlenn]

Why not have the ship automatically lock on to all tribble life signs and beam them into space?

I specifically remember a line about the transporter being broken because of Tribbles damage. Kirk and crew got lucky that their transporters remained functional.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

But the captain is always responsible for everything that happens on the ship.

Much as it pains me to say this...it's not always that black & white.

Starfleet didn't hold Kirk responsible for what happened in TUC, did they? Valeris and her ilk were acting as part of a conspiracy and Kirk (depsite being their commanding officer) was not charged with anything.

How is this any different? The only thing is that the conspiracy, as such, was Larkin alone.

I do agree, though, that the tribbles were reproducing way too fast. Even assuming that they got into the ship's food stores (which is certainly possible), the ones we're used to seeing don't breed that quickly, so these shouldn't have either. But I suppose there's explanations for that as well.

For instance, the mere fact that some tribbles got to the planet below, proves that at some point they were exposed to the vacuum of space. Perhaps this slowed them down a bit.

 

[dinzy]

I'm still not seeing how Lucero deserves any blame for all of this.

She could havwe evacuated the ship sooner, vented the whole thing killing all tribbles and then reboarded and cleaned the whole thing up. As a supposed science ship this should have been obvious. They should have vented at the end too.

I also found her moving Edward to climatalogy or whatever to be ridiculous. Saying "we are all scientists..." was absolutely written by someone without a fucking clue. Getting a doctorate involves concentrating on a type of problem. Yes one can expand their knowledge but it would take months to get the basics down and years to build that new expertise.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

It would seem that ejecting the tribbles into space would not have helped. Indeed, it would probably have made things worse.

Like I said, at least some tribbles must have been exposed to space, because there's no other way they could have got to the planet's surface. Some of the tribbles were no doubt destroyed in the explosion of the Cabot. But if they'd ALL been blown out the airlock, I'm sure that a lot more of them would have found their way planetside...

 

[BillJ]

It would seem that ejecting the tribbles into space would not have helped. Indeed, it would probably have made things worse.

Like I said, at least some tribbles must have been exposed to space, because there's no other way they could have got to the planet's surface. Some of the tribbles were no doubt destroyed in the explosion of the Cabot. But if they'd ALL been blown out the airlock, I'm sure that a lot more of them would have found their way planetside...

Which makes no sense as they should’ve burned up in the atmosphere. The Cabot may have crash landed on the planets surface.

 

[DEWLine]

Lucero had a clue. Starfleet Sciences is strong on cross-training in multiple disciplines wherever and whenever possible. If you want to run a science department on a ship or a base, or captain a research vessel rather than a ship of the line, then you are going to get as current as you can on as many fields as you can.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I also found her moving Edward to climatalogy or whatever to be ridiculous. Saying "we are all scientists..." was absolutely written by someone without a fucking clue. Getting a doctorate involves concentrating on a type of problem. Yes one can expand their knowledge but it would take months to get the basics down and years to build that new expertise.

At this point, Lucero seemed more like a corporate middle manager than a SF captain

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Which makes no sense as they should’ve burned up in the atmosphere. The Cabot may have crash landed on the planets surface.

Yeah, that does make more sense. My bad.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

She could havwe evacuated the ship sooner, vented the whole thing killing all tribbles and then reboarded and cleaned the whole thing up. As a supposed science ship this should have been obvious. They should have vented at the end too.

Tribbles might be extremophiles like tardigrades and survive in space or in an oxygen starved environment by desiccating themselves. Plus, ones in closed spaces like behind energy panels or in conduits and Jefferies Tubes would be unaffected by the atmosphere blowout.

I also found her moving Edward to climatalogy or whatever to be ridiculous. Saying "we are all scientists..." was absolutely written by someone without a fucking clue. Getting a doctorate involves concentrating on a type of problem. Yes one can expand their knowledge but it would take months to get the basics down and years to build that new expertise.

You don't have to be an expert in a particular field in order to provide assistance to the actual climatologists. It was a very small crew (fit in one escape shuttle) so I would assume that cross-training in different fields or providing assistance outside your own field would be standard procedure on the Cabot.