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Some 'Before Dishonor' observations....*Spoilers*

With Geordi I know him. I've seen him disagree with Picard, but more likely he goes with Picard because he knows the man, he trusts him, and I'm cool with that. Just like I'm cool with T'Lana or Leybenzon not going with Picard. I had no problem with that.

My issue with Kadohata was if TPTB made a big deal about her previous service on the ENT-D, why didn't she trust Picard, perhaps the Federation's greatest Borg authority besides Janeway and Seven?

Why didn't Geordi trust Picard in Destiny? You're cutting him slack that you're not granting to Miranda. That's a double standard.

And it remains a false premise. You can trust and respect someone and still have a profound disagreement with them. You've acknowledged that was the case with Geordi. So you're contradicting yourself by treating it as an impossibility when talking about Miranda.


Or why didn't she try to bridge the divides among the various factions. She didn't. She followed orders, and then she started having second thoughts, and went back on those orders, what was right about that decision? She still flouted orders, just later on, after showing a lack of trust in her commanding officer.

Nechayev and Jellico were her commanding officers too. I say again, the issue of trust and loyalty is not exclusively about Jean-Luc Picard. Haven't you ever been torn between two choices that both required going against someone you respected or cared for? Haven't you ever been in a situation where neither alternative was desirable but you were forced to choose one or the other of the two bad options you had?

As for why she didn't try to bridge the divide -- why pin it exclusively on her? Why didn't Nechayev or Picard try harder to bridge the divide? Why didn't Worf bring his years of diplomatic experience to bear on finding a way to bridge the divide? In Greater Than the Sum, when Nechayev and Picard met a few months later, they both admitted that they'd been too confrontational, too unwilling to bend or compromise or trust one another. Nobody in that situation behaved in a particularly admirable manner. If Picard and the admirals hadn't been so intractable, Miranda would've never been put into that position in the first place. It was unfair of them to place that burden on her. She was an overworked, stressed-out junior officer put in a terrible position by the bad judgment of her superiors in the middle of a terrifying and disastrous situation. Would your judgment have been any better in such circumstances?

Nobody's saying Miranda's choice was right or perfect. Only that she's not an incompetent or hateful person just because she was forced into a situation that gave her no good options.
 
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I don't see Geordi/Miranda as a contradiction or double standard at all. I know Geordi. I don't know Kadohata. I've seen Geordi agree and disagree with Picard before, but I know little about Kadohata and what I had learned about her in Q & A made me feel that she would be inclined to go with Picard, not against him.

I'm focusing on Kadohata because she was in a unique position onboard the ship to be that bridge in a way that Picard, Worf, Geordi, or Crusher couldn't. She was part of the old crew, but new to the E-E. So she could perhaps see both sides of the situation differently, or at least be perceived as such.

I didn't say that Kadohata was incompetent or hateful. I said she was vacillating, and she was.
 
I don't see Geordi/Miranda as a contradiction or double standard at all. I know Geordi. I don't know Kadohata.

Uhh, isn't that the very definition of a double standard? Judging two people differently for reasons that are exclusively about you rather than them?

I didn't say that Kadohata was incompetent or hateful. I said she was vacillating, and she was.

And in that difficult situation, that was as understandable as any other choice.
 
I think it was two different situations between Geordi and Miranda. Geordi disagreed with an order Picard issued and refused to do it, he didn't support a mutiny against the man. Since I knew more about Geordi's history and his relationship with Hugh, I understood his motivation better. I didn't understand Miranda's willingness to take that action against Picard and the crew that was supporting him.

Vacillation is understandable, but that doesn't mean I agree with it in that instance. I don't think Kadohata is a monster, I think she's a boring character whose actions in Before Dishonor did nothing to make her more endearing.
 
I think she's a boring character whose actions in Before Dishonor did nothing to make her more endearing.

I've found all of the new characters to be either bland or uninteresting, especially when compared to the crew of the Titan. In some respects, I wouldn't mind PAD coming back and working some more of his em.. magic.. on those characters.
 
I think: If you're going to kill off a character, kill them off. Don't cop out with a 'maybe they're not dead after all'....

Exactly what I thought. Either she dies or she doesn't. However, Janeway's death seemed rushed to me anyway. She didn't really get a good send-off.

So I quess it would be okay for her to return as Q but sacrifice herself for some reason. That would be a death I can live with.
 
I think it was two different situations between Geordi and Miranda. Geordi disagreed with an order Picard issued and refused to do it, he didn't support a mutiny against the man.

Okay, for the fifty-seventh time:

Picard was the one committing mutiny. He was flagrantly disobeying the lawful orders of his superiors. He was committing a court-martial offense. Admiral Nechayev ordered Commander Kadohata to do her duty and arrest the mutineer. Kadohata obeyed that lawfully given order.
 
Let's get real here for a minute, this isn't war and peace, it's tie-in franchise fiction. When you put a nobody character in conflict with the beloved hero (even worse the beloved hero + spock) you make them look like a putz, because a) the hero is going to be right and b) everybody likes the hero - regardless of how you spin the internal reality. That's my problem with it, it's a conflict where the outcome is telegraphed before it's even started and you damage the character because the reader is going to root for the hero characters.

That's not to say that you cannot have internal conflict but there are ways to do it and this isn't a particular good example.
 
^That's probably true, but I don't think it should be held against the character that she got placed in such an untenable position, whether in-story or in real life.
 
^That's probably true, but I don't think it should be held against the character that she got placed in such an untenable position, whether in-story or in real life.

For the fifty-eighth time, her decision-making in Before Dishonor is not why I dislike Kadohata. But it certainly didn't score points with me.
 
I think she's a boring character whose actions in Before Dishonor did nothing to make her more endearing.

I've found all of the new characters to be either bland or uninteresting, especially when compared to the crew of the Titan. In some respects, I wouldn't mind PAD coming back and working some more of his em.. magic.. on those characters.

I certainly would've liked a bit more species diversity among the new TNG crew. Jasminder seems the most interesting of the ones that's left. The half-Vulcan character from Greater than the Sum (can't remember her name off hand), wasn't bad, but the others are sort of blah. I liked T'Lana. Sara Nave was a bit of a Mary Sue, but I wound up liking her and I liked her relationship with Lio.
 
I just finished Before Dishonor. The joking around between the Admirals in the bunker while the Borg Cube was about to dine on Earth was a bit ridiculous. Don't really care at all for T'Lana or Kadohata. Not sure how a Vulcan can make a good counselor. Leybenzon should be spaced. Overall the book was a decent read. Can't wait to get to the Destiny series.
 
I just finished Before Dishonor. The joking around between the Admirals in the bunker while the Borg Cube was about to dine on Earth was a bit ridiculous. Don't really care at all for T'Lana or Kadohata. Not sure how a Vulcan can make a good counselor. Leybenzon should be spaced. Overall the book was a decent read. Can't wait to get to the Destiny series.

My take on that scene:

They were scared, and they, especially Nechayev, attempted to lighten up the mood...and remain optimistic, even as it looked like things were going haywire.
 
I just finished Before Dishonor. The joking around between the Admirals in the bunker while the Borg Cube was about to dine on Earth was a bit ridiculous. Don't really care at all for T'Lana or Kadohata. Not sure how a Vulcan can make a good counselor. Leybenzon should be spaced. Overall the book was a decent read. Can't wait to get to the Destiny series.

My take on that scene:

They were scared, and they, especially Nechayev, attempted to lighten up the mood...and remain optimistic, even as it looked like things were going haywire.

Thats my own personal take on the scene as well as thats how I react when a situation ain't going to well for me.
 
people obviously aren't familiar with the concept of 'gallows humour' around here...

Yeah, I'm probably not familiar with it. I should have said that I didn't think the joking was funny as in hah-hah. I could appreciate a good joke in the face of death.

Just an opinion...
 
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