Picard's rank

[Anwar]

You don't need to be a full Captain to command a ship. Picard could've been a Lt who was eventually promoted to Lt Cmdr and given command of the Stargazer for years (which led to other promotions until he was a full Captain). Since he was in command of the Stargazer during the Battle of Maxia I'm guessing the battle that killed the original Captain was years earlier. Seeing what we learned later, it might've even been a battle with the Cardassians that caused it.

 

[Red Ranger]

Well, I'd guess Picard was in command of Stargazer for longer than a year. We know he had several adventures, such as: being attacked by the Cardassians when he lowered shields as a good-will gesture (The Wounded), conducted theta-band experiments (Chain of Command, Pt. I), and met the Chalnoth (Allegiance). It's also implied by how reverent Riker is to Picard, esp. in The Battle, that Picard had a notable career as a starship captain. Now, there is a non-canon reference in the TNG Bible that Picard commanded the ship for 22 years, but there's that word again, non-canon! -- RR

 

[T'Cal]

The MJ Friedman novels do use the LtCmdr -> CO backstory, in a somewhat literal-minded interpretation of the Writers' Guide description of Picard's early heroics. It's not something that could be supported by onscreen evidence, though. And the Friedman books have become something of a standard for Stargazer history now. At least they're more palatable than the triple-promotion theory...

Timo Saloniemi

Timo, et al.,

Yes, that triple-promotion idea never made sense to me. I don't remember if that was in the series bible, but I do recall it was in a book about Picard's management style, therefore, not canon.

I like to think he was either a lt. cmdr. or cmdr., and either second or first officer, when the Stargazer's captain was killed and he took over the bridge...
Red Ranger

Thanks! That's where I read it. The book is titled Make It So: Leadership Lessons from ST:TNG. I love this book! I've read it several times and credit its advice for helping me get promoted twice in my career. I happen to have it handy in my work office. Here's the excerpt that I recalled:
"As a lieutenant, I served as a bridge officer aboard the U.S.S.Stargazer. During a hostile engagement, our captain was mortally wounded. I took immediate charge or our vessel and ordered a counterattack. My initiative and actions saved both the Stargazer and its remaining crew. Starfleet Command rewarded me with a three-grade promotion - to the rank of captain - and gave me my first command."

This is consistent with the other non-canon info I read when the show began.

 

[Praetor]

I always thought that saving the Stargazer put Picard on a fast track to promotion, but did not result in immediate promotion. Just a personal notion. However, if the circumstances surrounding his heroics were grand enough, a triple promotion would certainly be enough to get him his first paragraph in the history books, and headed towards captaining the flagship.

FWIW, in the game 'Star Trek: Legacy' the mission involves Picard having to save three heavily inhabited planets after their star suffers a catastrophe and throws off chunks of debris. That might be triple-promotion worthy.

 

[Red Ranger]

I always thought that saving the Stargazer put Picard on a fast track to promotion, but did not result in immediate promotion. Just a personal notion. However, if the circumstances surrounding his heroics were grand enough, a triple promotion would certainly be enough to get him his first paragraph in the history books, and headed towards captaining the flagship.

FWIW, in the game 'Star Trek: Legacy' the mission involves Picard having to save three heavily inhabited planets after their star suffers a catastrophe and throws off chunks of debris. That might be triple-promotion worthy.

An interesting notion. Maybe Picard is the only officer to be bumped up to captain from lieutenant, and that, along with his missions, is why he's a legend? Just a thought. -- RR

 

[Praetor]

I always thought that saving the Stargazer put Picard on a fast track to promotion, but did not result in immediate promotion. Just a personal notion. However, if the circumstances surrounding his heroics were grand enough, a triple promotion would certainly be enough to get him his first paragraph in the history books, and headed towards captaining the flagship.

FWIW, in the game 'Star Trek: Legacy' the mission involves Picard having to save three heavily inhabited planets after their star suffers a catastrophe and throws off chunks of debris. That might be triple-promotion worthy.

An interesting notion. Maybe Picard is the only officer to be bumped up to captain from lieutenant, and that, along with his missions, is why he's a legend? Just a thought. -- RR

A good thought, methinks.

 

[Timo]

Why should Picard be a "legend"?

He's not particularly legendary among his fellow Captains in TNG. Rather than worship him, the Admirals boss him around (it's their job, after all!). The one thing Admiral Hanson brings forth when establishing Picard as a good character is that he won the Academy Marathon...

I don't buy the multiple-promotion story at all. There would be no reason or rhyme to it. If Picard was particularly heroic, they'd pin a medal on him, not a pocketful of rank pips. And they certainly wouldn't send such a celebrated near-Messiah to command some obscure rust bucket at the edges of space, and then keep him there till he turned sixty.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Red Ranger]

Why should Picard be a "legend"?

He's not particularly legendary among his fellow Captains in TNG. Rather than worship him, the Admirals boss him around (it's their job, after all!). The one thing Admiral Hanson brings forth when establishing Picard as a good character is that he won the Academy Marathon...

I don't buy the multiple-promotion story at all. There would be no reason or rhyme to it. If Picard was particularly heroic, they'd pin a medal on him, not a pocketful of rank pips. And they certainly wouldn't send such a celebrated near-Messiah to command some obscure rust bucket at the edges of space, and then keep him there till he turned sixty.

Timo Saloniemi

Here's a thought. Maybe at the time Picard served on the Stargazer, it was a deep space exploration ship, and not close to a starbase. Also, as I posited in an earlier post, as the ship was an older model, it perhaps wasn't considered a "worthy" assignment for a more experienced captain.

A headquarters admiral, let's say it was J.P. Hanson, then figured, "Hey, this Picard is a young hotshot. I see potential. Let's give him command and a triple-promotion and see if he can take lemons and make lemonade."

I must confess I got part of that rationale from the novel The Entropy Effect. There's a part where Kirk is considering Suu's career and decides to promote him early to lieutenant commander to make his accomplishments stand out, because he'd have to transfer off Enterprise to advance his career. So this admiral I'm thinking of may have come to the same conclusion, "let's make Picard's career stand out from other officers."

Red Ranger

 

[Praetor]

I like that. Alternately, maybe Picard just got a double promotion and was given command, and then earned his Captain's bars. The double promotion would still be a nice achievement.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

You don't need to be a full Captain to command a ship. Picard could've been a Lt who was eventually promoted to Lt Cmdr and given command of the Stargazer for years (which led to other promotions until he was a full Captain).

Agreed. That is what I prefer to envision. It doesn't really make sense to *skip* ranks (they are, after all, there to be used), but being promoted rather quickly...I can see that. And the Stargazer isn't exactly top of the line; it would fit that a LCDR or CDR would be its permanent commanding officer.

 

[Timo]

We should also remember that Picard's heroic taking command of the bridge when the skipper fell was never directly associated with him getting command of the Stargazer. It was merely one event in Q's list of heroic things that the young Picard did to gain his good reputation and thus presumably to ascend the rank and position ladder.

So it might have been years upon years between these heroics and the date when Starfleet decided to reward them with giving Picard a starship to command. Perhaps young Picard did all this fancy and brash stuff within a few months of leaving the Academy, after which he mellowed out to the old Picard we know - and Starfleet was only happy with giving him a ship after he had attained this maturity?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Praetor]

That's a good theory too.

Why do our TNG characters have such vague pasts?

 

[JustKate]

Because if they didn't, it would be harder to revise those pasts in order to fit a new plot.

Mind you, I think they went too far sometimes (and Picard's promotion to captain is one of those times, I'd say), but that is surely the reason. You don't want to come up with a great idea involving, say, Troi's mother only to have some other writer (or smartybutt fan) say, "But look, right here in episode X you said Troi's mother is dead." So they leave it vague until they need it for some plot or other.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Apparently the thought of being consistent across scripts and writers is not as widespread as we thought. If they did that, there'd be no need for vagueness. This is why we have Writer's Bibles, innit?

 

[Praetor]

Because if they didn't, it would be harder to revise those pasts in order to fit a new plot.

Mind you, I think they went too far sometimes (and Picard's promotion to captain is one of those times, I'd say), but that is surely the reason. You don't want to come up with a great idea involving, say, Troi's mother only to have some other writer (or smartybutt fan) say, "But look, right here in episode X you said Troi's mother is dead." So they leave it vague until they need it for some plot or other.

Oh, I get that. I just think it's a shame that after seven years and three movies most of those gaps weren't filled in.

And good point, Babaganoosh.

 

[JustKate]

Well, I understand what you mean, and I'd like to know, too, but when I think about how it might have been done, I must confess that it becomes a pretty baffling problem.

When you think about it, there wasn't much chance for ordinary chit-chat between crew members in all those 7 years and all those movies. How could there be? And what would be the purpose, aside from satisfying the curiosity of the not-so-casual fan? TNG (and all the shows, really) wasn't a show about "Here is how those characters came to develop." We are not talking about Long Day's Journey Into Night here. It was about ideas and boldly going where no one has gone before, with some action thrown in. So we know a lot about, say, Picard's ethics and principles...but not so much about his career. Much as I'd like to know about his career, I do think his principles, and the principles of the other regulars, were more important to the show. So I'd rather they give screen time to them.

Yes, they could have thrown us a few more morsels now and then, but realistically, I don't think they could have thrown us that many more. Some would be nice, though, and probably wouldn't have been that hard to do. But then again, I've never had to write a script that was exactly 53 minutes long (or however long a typical TNG episode is), so perhaps I'm underestimating the difficulty.

 

[Praetor]

Well, not even morsels, but stories that have to do with their pasts. I get what you're saying too, though. I guess what I'm saying is that I wish TNG had been a little more character-driven than it was, even with the boldly-going and whatnot. But you're right, the way it was formatted, it was difficult to throw in past explanations and nuggets.

 

[JustKate]

Oh, I am with you in spirit, my Romulan brother (?). They did that now and then...but not enough, I agree. And when they did do it, it wasn't always...well, very natural -- probably because of trying to include all the boldly going and so on at the same time. Plus the fact that all too often, elements in the character's pasts were created specifically as plot devices, or at least that's how it seems. (Examples that come instantly to mind are the out-of-the-blue betrothals/engagements of Spock, Troi and Nurse Chapel -- particularly the last two.) Either that or it was just so odd and random-seeming. (I mean, why -- why -- give Worf's parents Russian accents? Why have Riker grow up in Alaska, a detail that never did any plot a darn bit of good nor shed any light on his character? Why why why?)

So this was something Trek just didn't do all that well, at least not very often. But it did a great job, generally speaking, at character development as opposed to background development, and that, I tell myself, is more important.

 

[Praetor]

Your Romulan brother agrees, sister(?). We reach.

 

[JustKate]

Ooh, good. (And we both guessed right on the gender thing, too.)