That's a really great idea, that a Changling infiltrator set up the whole Valiant mission to, at least, get one of Starfleet's best combat ships and a bunch of promising cadets out of the way for a while, and at best get them all destroyed. Maybe Captain Ramirez was a changling and after he appeared to die actually just hung around looking like a piece of wreckage until the Defiant was out of sensor range and then turned into a form capable of interstellar travel. He told Watters that he was fully commissioned with the power to grant full commissions, and Watters believed him. That actually can save the episode from severe plot holes.
Redsquad! Redsquad! Redsquad!
- Thread starter Romo Lampkin
- Start date
That actually would be an interesting idea. Then Jake and Nog, who would have more experience with understanding Changelings, and might discover the clues.
Just watched the episode again because of this thread. And now I keep wondering whatever happened to that (supposedly very important) Federation Council diplomatic message Nog had to deliver in person to the Grand Nagus 
I will note that both DS9 Valiant and TNG's the First Duty were both written by Ron Moore. In my mind "Valiant" actually makes the Voyager writers look better for completing rebooting the Tom Paris character away from Nova Squad, Nick Locarno, and the First Duty(Something that at the time was fairly controversial).
Redsquad is perhaps one of my least favorite elements of DS9.
Redsquad is perhaps one of my least favorite elements of DS9.
Nah, they are too much the headbangers to call these kids a ship full of Wesleys (what an absolute *&^%$£ nightmare that would be).
Wesley would soon be put in the brig by these kids. Which would possibly be their one virtue.
Could Nog have taken command though?
Watters was given a field commission of Captain. Can that be rescinded by an ensign? I'm not sure how it works, or how official Watters command would actually be.
...though...given Nog's promotion to Lt. only applied while he was on the Valiant and immediately went back to being an ensign when he went back to Ds9 I'd say Watters positon was entirely bullshit and Nog could very easily have taken command...
Watters was given a field commission of Captain. Can that be rescinded by an ensign? I'm not sure how it works, or how official Watters command would actually be.
...though...given Nog's promotion to Lt. only applied while he was on the Valiant and immediately went back to being an ensign when he went back to Ds9 I'd say Watters positon was entirely bullshit and Nog could very easily have taken command...
Red Squad would be foldin' their arms and lookin' sternly straight ahead at Captain Nog's first order.
But anyway I don't think he's the authority to take over. I think if you've got a field commision of captain, it can only be rescinded by someone with the rank of captain or higher. That's my guess.
Watters has done some good stuff as captain. The guy is not untalented. He projects a good front as captain. It's not immediately evident that he's a screw-up. And Nog himself isn't exactly Captain Kirk. So I don't see Nog swaggering into the big chair.
But anyway I don't think he's the authority to take over. I think if you've got a field commision of captain, it can only be rescinded by someone with the rank of captain or higher. That's my guess.
Watters has done some good stuff as captain. The guy is not untalented. He projects a good front as captain. It's not immediately evident that he's a screw-up. And Nog himself isn't exactly Captain Kirk. So I don't see Nog swaggering into the big chair.
Technically, maybe. As a practical matter, Watters had the loyalty of the crew where Nog was a stranger.
I tend to agree with the latter part of that. With wisdom and experience, he might have been a good captain. And this is why they don't normally hand out command positions like candy.
I do, however, think the entire ship was crewed by screw ups. As I said upthread, Starfleet cadets are supposed to be well-educated beings. Each and every one of them should have recognized what was happening and put a stop to it. That they failed to recognize it -- or, worse, recognized it and failed to act -- shows exactly how screwed up they were.
I think it also speaks to how they were trained to be, though.
They were clearly given special treatment at the Academy, and clearly even after Nova Squad's failure and Red Squad's previous complicity with Admiral Leyton (do we assume the entirety of Red Squad was utterly oblivious to the illegality of their acts?), haven't gotten it into their heads that explicitly showing that some cadets are more special than others isn't a great idea. And this from a culture that banned eugenics on the grounds that superior ability bred superior ambition! Irony.
Put another way, if you want to "breed" screw-ups, make them believe they're better than everyone else, then put them in a situation where they no longer have any basis for comparison.
One wonders whether under other circumstances they would have gone all "Lord of the Flies".
They were clearly given special treatment at the Academy, and clearly even after Nova Squad's failure and Red Squad's previous complicity with Admiral Leyton (do we assume the entirety of Red Squad was utterly oblivious to the illegality of their acts?), haven't gotten it into their heads that explicitly showing that some cadets are more special than others isn't a great idea. And this from a culture that banned eugenics on the grounds that superior ability bred superior ambition! Irony.
Put another way, if you want to "breed" screw-ups, make them believe they're better than everyone else, then put them in a situation where they no longer have any basis for comparison.
One wonders whether under other circumstances they would have gone all "Lord of the Flies".
The idea that Red Squad, and "Valiant" in particular, is a Changeling plot, makes more sense than anything I've seen yet today. All the pieces fall into place when you consider that. 
I think a field commission like this can only be rescinded by the officer who gave that commission in the first place (Captain Ramirez). And if he is dead, then they'd have to wait for Starfleet Command.
And even if Nog had tried, he was outnumbered. Nobody in Red Squad would have accepted it. Nog and Jake were on their own - no matter what Starfleet regs they tried to quote, Red Squad would not listen.
I think a field commission like this can only be rescinded by the officer who gave that commission in the first place (Captain Ramirez). And if he is dead, then they'd have to wait for Starfleet Command.
And even if Nog had tried, he was outnumbered. Nobody in Red Squad would have accepted it. Nog and Jake were on their own - no matter what Starfleet regs they tried to quote, Red Squad would not listen.
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But the circumstances that led to Waters' failure were created by him. He wasn't ordered to (in WW II terms) take his destroyer up against a battleship. The right thing to do would have been to contact Starfleet at the first opportunity after their real officers were dead. Starfleet may have had better ideas about how the Valiant should be deployed in the war rather than limping around for months trying to get sensor readings on the Cardassian battleship. Their proceeding without orders reminds me of things Kirk did, or Dukat in his one-man war in the captured Klingon ship... but Kirk and Dukat got away with it because they had the experience to accomplish something worthwhile and not get themselves destroyed.
Well I think Watters commission since it had not been ratified by starfleet meant nothing, since nog had a commission ratified by starfleet command I think he did out rank Watters though nog was too in awe to ever realise that I think.
Yeah I posted before that the rest of red squad were too arrogant to question Watters so I think that he would never have been able to take command as red squad would not follow as he was not one of them.
No, probably not, but they were still his choices. Just because the Academy made such arrogance possible doesn't mean Waters isn't responsible. His orders were to scan the battleship and then report. He actually succeeded at scanning the battleship and would no doubt have been hailed as a hero if he'd reappeared with the data. Instead, not only did he lose a good crew and ship the Starfleet could really have used, he didn't even send the data back so Starfleet could plan an attack on the battleship.
New theory: the Valiant from the prime universe was swapped with the Valiant from the Abramsverse. Watters was following Kirk's example; of course the cadet should take command of a starship and destroy the enemy superstarship.
The Red Squad crew from Primeverse probably became quite confused once they returned to starbase with those sensor readings and started noticing the differences.
The Red Squad crew from Primeverse probably became quite confused once they returned to starbase with those sensor readings and started noticing the differences.
