Yes, 11 years older if memory alpha’s dates are correct
Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x03 - "Shuttle to Kenfori"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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Scotty always gave me the impression that he was more like O'Brien- a grease monkey with good instincts and excellent leadership qualities, who was over-protective of his department. Your chief engineer does not have to be your best engineer. Cheesy though it was, Troi's command test was right. A good commander knows how to allocate resources and if your junior engineer is a genius at warp equations, give them the job. That doesn't mean they should be in charge of the department.
Modern Trek increasingly overlooks this for the sake of the drama. The worst example was promoting Ensign Tilly to be first officer when Nielsson, a competent, intelligent, experienced lieutenant-commander with all the same qualities ×10 was standing 5 feet away. Compare TWOK to Into Darkness. Spock is qualified to fix the engines and most likely to survive the radiation long enough to do so. To coin a phrase, it was logical. NuKirk, on the other hand, is not particularly qualified, or more resilient. The ship is potentially going to kill thousands if it explodes in the city but he chooses to save the crew and kick the engines better rather than risk sacrifice the qualified crew to save civilians. It's heroic but it's bad leadership and not logical. IMO this whole section needed to be more Mission Impossible with a focus on ejecting anti-matter pods, probably the warp core (it could splash down in water) and fixing impulse and thrusters to steer the ship into the ocean. Kirk could easily have been injured following instructions from someone actually qualified to do something within his skill set.
NuScotty started off as a poor comedy caricature of Scotty, so much so that you wondered if the writers actually watched any TOS or of they just based him on the hype. SNW writers have clearly watched TOS, which makes this version of Scotty look like an odd choice. I had always assumed he was like McCoy - he had worked and gained experience outside Starfleet before joining up in his thirties but there's no canon reason why my assumption had to be true.
He has two more series to grow though, so I will watch with interest.
In order for the plot to move forward, you need the decision makers to be in the main cast, and therefore it makes the most sense for those decision makers to be the best of their respective departments. If the chief engineer is constantly needing Ensign Redshirt's expertise to save the day, it just raises the question why is the show focusing on Chief Engineer instead of Ensign Redshirt.
Likewise, Tilly was promoted to XO over Nilsson because Tilly is main cast while Nilsson was just a co-star.
I'd also argue that given we know where Scotty ends up, it's more interesting to see him here as a work in progress on a character arc, rather spring forth, fully formed.
That said, I do think it would be more interesting if we were dealing with an older-seeming, more jaded Scotty here, with Pelia managing to get him to tone down his drinking and take his job more seriously.
You lost me at 'makes the most sense'. I get that it fits into the way TV shows operate so it makes the most operational sense for the production. It doesn't necessarily make the most sense for the story. There are other ways to do it that make more story sense.
Babylon 5 was originally going to have Tamlyn Tomita be revealed as a traitor at the end of season one and have Claudia Christian step up from second tier co-star to first tier star. O'Brien went from extra, to co-star, to guest star, to series lead.
Another option is to bring in a completely new character and use them to develop Tilly.
A third option is to have a part time character who appears when needed. So Ensign Redshirt or Keenser can be around without overpowering the main cast.
The odd thing about Discovery is that they DID have a ready cast of co-stars to step up. Unlike SNW, they even have a spare doctor to use occasionally.
I do. In TOS Scotty was often unsure but in the end what he did usually worked and even surprised him.
In TOS S1 The Naked Time the writers coin what will become the "I canna change the laws of physics" meme; because everything Kirk and Spock come up with Scotty doesn't think will work, but he does it anyway and it does.
In TOS S1 The Enemy Within after Kirk recapture his duplicate, who fires a Phaser at a conduit as Spock Nerve Pinches him; that conduit happened to contain some very needed Transporter circuits; when Scotty takes a look, his initial estimate: "I can't fix it in less then a week." (But of course working with Spock, they come up with a workaround.)
In TOS S2 The Doomsday Machine his first jury rigged fix of the Transporter fails as Kirk start the countdown to the USS Constellation's self destruction. But Scotty curses jumps back into the Jeffries Tube as Sulu broadcasts the countdown and Spock says "Mr. Scott...Try inverse phasing..." with less then 10 seconds left my Scott finishes, jumps down, says "Try 'er now, Mr. Kyle!" and Kirk is successfully beamed off.
In TOS S3 The Enterprise Incident the first time he hooks up the stolen Romulan Cloaking Device , he turns it on and it doesn't work. Minutes later as the Romulan ship is about to open fire on the 1701 with Kirk yelling "Throw the switch!" and with Scotty responding "It'll likely overload!" he throws the switch and it works.
In the film Star Trek III: The Search For Spock:
(And yes, this was done jokingly, but yeah, sometimes Scotty did overestimate even in TOS)
Kirk asks Scotty: "Do you always multiply your repair estimates by a factor of four?
Scotty replies: "Of course sir. How else do you expect me to maintain my reputation as a Miracle Worker?"
So yeah, for me Pelia's assessment of Scotty as someone who sometimes overthinks, occasionally slacks off a bit, but put a Phaser to his head (IE put him in real danger) and he very quickly comes up with a brilliant, workable solution that works is spot on.
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I need point how Lower Decks shows how that's not actually true.
You don't need your main cast to be saving the day, you just need them to be interesting.
I'd also like to point out here just how bad of an example Tilly is for the point you were trying to make given how "informed" everything about her way.
Aren't Mariner, Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford the main cast and the "heroes" of Lower Decks?
Which is what I meant. The main cast are contractually obligated to get their screentime, it's up to the writers to see they do, regardless if it makes story sense or not.
Which doesn't solve the problem of "how do we use the main cast here?"
Lower Decks is a sitcom. What works there wouldn't work in a drama.
Which is how you get Chain of Command and Picard as a commando.
Yup, but they were almost never saving the day except as an accessory to the bridge crew.
Which shows that sort of thing can actually work so long as the writing is there to support it.
Lower Decks dramatic writing blew Discovery's attempts at similar out of the water.
So that's not really a good argument.
Me neither. But SNW is gonna SNW, so I let it roll past me. I turned in my TOS Canon badge after I saw Subspace Rhapsody and now I just enjoy me some Trek.
I can see why they're doing this arc. I just think it's too late in Scotty's career for it. Doesn't mean that I hate it or anything. It just feels a bit off to me at least because it's a bit late. Seems like by 38 he'd have already been through that process. Not necessarily I know but again it seems a bit late.
I'm enjoying the season for sure and the series. It's not a huge deal to me, just one I noted.
I wonder if it's more on the structure of Starfleet for him in his experience over being on a freighter. Different rules, and expectations, never mind the traumatic experience.
I kind of remember them doing a lot of day saving.
Why? It didn't contradict anything in TOS
Hell it was one of the Trekkiest Treks ever to Trek.
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