Retroactive justification for Riker's friction towards Jellico?
- Thread starter Ragitsu
- Start date
Uh...he calls him Commander in the scene you posted.
"Will you pilot the shuttle, Commander?"
Fun fact, I learned some time ago that hyperpole is pronounced "high purr buh lee" and not hyper bowl.
On topic, Jellico wasn't perfect but he was neither evil nor incompetent or a danger to the mission and if he was the character we had known for years and the regulars were the guest stars most people would be on Jellico's side saying things like "OMG, he knows what he's doing, why are they whining so much?"
I definitely won't say that all of Jellico's changes were necessarily great ideas, but for the ostensible best of the best of Starfleet, you'd expect the command staff and crew to show a bit more adaptability. It's their duty to raise their objections to him, which most of them (Riker possibly excepted in some instances) did, and it's then his prerogative to either reconsider his orders in light of their objections or to tell them to push ahead anyway, and at that point, the conversation's over. Picard always liked to do the 'let's all meet in the conference room' style of leadership, but there's nothing to suggest that that was considered "best practice" in Starfleet, especially at a time of crisis (and I want to be clear that this seems to be more crisis than Crisis; nothing that happens here is on the scale of a Borg cube bearing down on Our Heroes or such).
Nothing he did exhibited incompetence or treasonous conduct, and from the E-D's performance in the episodes there's no indication that any of Jellico's changes had any significant adverse impact. Hell, I really would have enjoyed a later reference by Picard to some of Jellico's changes constituting improvements, perhaps with either begrudging or belatedly complimentary agreement from the command staff.
At my job I occasionally have things come up that require me to work on weekends or stay late, or I get into debates about things where I end up on the losing side. Sometimes I have conflicts due to preexisting commitments or what-not and I let my manager know that. But if I started regularly refusing to do anything that I disagreed with or felt would be problematic or to ever work overtime, I'd expect a serious conversation to ensue regarding my future with the company.
Riker himself worried he'd become complacent in BoBW, and it might have been nice to see some of that self-doubt come into play here, because there seems to be a real question of whether Our Heroes are resistant based on well-founded arguments, or whether they're resistant because they don't like having their captain replaced, or whether they're resistant because they in fact have become complacent and don't want to change the habits they've become accustomed to.
I earlier asked whether Jellico was set up by the writers to be a failure as a captain (at least relative to Picard), and now I'll turn that around and observe that perhaps Our Heroes were also set up to be failures as people Jellico realistically should have been able to better work with.
Nothing he did exhibited incompetence or treasonous conduct, and from the E-D's performance in the episodes there's no indication that any of Jellico's changes had any significant adverse impact. Hell, I really would have enjoyed a later reference by Picard to some of Jellico's changes constituting improvements, perhaps with either begrudging or belatedly complimentary agreement from the command staff.
At my job I occasionally have things come up that require me to work on weekends or stay late, or I get into debates about things where I end up on the losing side. Sometimes I have conflicts due to preexisting commitments or what-not and I let my manager know that. But if I started regularly refusing to do anything that I disagreed with or felt would be problematic or to ever work overtime, I'd expect a serious conversation to ensue regarding my future with the company.
Riker himself worried he'd become complacent in BoBW, and it might have been nice to see some of that self-doubt come into play here, because there seems to be a real question of whether Our Heroes are resistant based on well-founded arguments, or whether they're resistant because they don't like having their captain replaced, or whether they're resistant because they in fact have become complacent and don't want to change the habits they've become accustomed to.
I earlier asked whether Jellico was set up by the writers to be a failure as a captain (at least relative to Picard), and now I'll turn that around and observe that perhaps Our Heroes were also set up to be failures as people Jellico realistically should have been able to better work with.
The inverse example would be data in redemption. However Data was not hostile to the crew, did not micromanage, and made an order during a critical time with 2 minutes notice, not days before the event or hours before he even took command.
Data didn’t redecorate, whine to a councillor about his kids, or hide in his quarters.
Data didn’t redecorate, whine to a councillor about his kids, or hide in his quarters.
The moment Picard transfers command to Jellico, Jellico becomes boss.
If you want to seriously engage on the topic, drop the hyperbole.
Yep, but that was not the case when Jellico stepped off the transporter pad.
Anyway, it looks like this round-robin is starting up again so I'm out.
Which part of the quoted comment was hyperbole?
Yes comments about sending Jellico back on a hurtle or arresting for treason are hyperbole. She should never have been put in charge of the Enterprise given Riker was more than capable as proven during BOBW, but as he was his actions were awful
But like I said before this doesn't make sense. Not implementing an order out of principle because the new captain is not yet in command and the ceremony isn't until noon or whatever will only piss him off, so why do it? Especially because the shift change would happen after Jellico takes command so it wouldn't even interfere with how Picard runs things, it would just make for a smoother transition. In fact Jellico was giving the crew more time to adjust by making his wishes clear right away instead of waiting until after the ceremony and dropping the four shift rotation order then.
- Being hostile to the crew. He wasn't accommodating their feelings but that's not the same as being hostile. He became hostile towards Riker but that was a response to Riker undermining his authority.
- Micromanaging. He didn't do that.
- Redecorating. He pinned some drawings on the wall and had a fish tank removed from his ready room. Hardly worth mentioning.
- Whining to a counselor. They had a conversation.
- Hiding in his quarters. He didn't hide, he presumably worked and couldn't use the ready room because as people like to point out, he wasn't in command yet.
Riker proved he was the wrong guy for the mission because he immediately wanted to rescue Picard and then got pissed when he was told no despite not saving Picard at that point being the only sensible option.
And the fact that he returned to being an XO after BOBW instead of moving on to his own ship might also have played a part, you can only turn down being the CO so often until starfleet gets the message. If he doesn't want to take command why should they give him one?
Similar threads
