To impress, this is only my opinion and I apologize in advance if anyone is offended.
I never had much sympathy for Saru or Tilly, but since S03E11, I have a lot of trouble digesting Saru as captain and Tilly as anything but very junior crew member that shouldn't speak to anyone outranking her withouth being spoken to first.
Why Saru as captain is bad? He's overly timid as we can see in previous episodes. First, by letting the defeated Zareh go. You don't leave a threat like him walking around. By letting him go you're just enabling him to do more and more damage. He should have been killed and Saru, as Captain, should have done it himself. "We're Starfleet, leave criminals go free so they can do more damage." Great marketing. Second, once Osyraa started bombarding Books homeworld there's really on excuse not to engage her, especially after her weapons were disabled. Heck, Discovery should have pursued and knocked her out of warp and destroyed head of Emerald chain right there and then. "We're Starfleet, the bigger criminal you are, the sooner you can go free!!!" Even more great marketing. Later he becomes too emotional about seeing another Kelpian that's been dead for over half a century. Letting his emotions cloud the judgment is one of the cardinal sins that captain of starship does not have as luxury. But, most questionable decision was making ensgin Tilly his XO. He should have known that she just wasn't up to the task. I'll get into that later. By her own words, she didn't even finish leadership training course. Just asking her to become his XO shows serious, nay criminal, lack of judgment. I don't blame her for accepting. Once promotion was offered, turning it down, regardless of circumstances, is a black mark in your record. There probably won't be another opportunity for career advancement or it will come years after rest her class has already advanced more gradually. Saru put her in bad position and really left her no choice.
Why Tilly as XO is bad? Too much responosibility, not enough skill and experience in a nutshell. She never commanded even an away team, there's no track record of her taking leadrship position anywhere in the entire series. Not even her science team. She can analyze as good or even better than other science officers, but she never led even a project. As XO her duties are ensuring the ship is functioning properly (regular maintenance), supplies are at optimum levels, crew is well trained (especiall cross training). While we see some glimpse of Tilly handling those duties, when shit hit the fan, crew is woefully unprepared to handle the challenge. How they managed to survive so far is beyond me. Lack of her experience shows the most when dealing with Osyraa. First of, with spore drive there's really no sense in keeping staiton in front of Veridian Nebula. They can instantly jump there from... anywhere. Why didn't they jump to Starfleet headquarters had their shields repaired in half the time and been ready to jump in whenever they are needed?
When they detected "Federation ship" that gives good codes, but won't hail them... oh man, so many options here. Cloak and move away from them? Jump on the OTHER side of Veridian Nebula and still be at staion to assist Saru? Jump away from them after first comms exchange? Don't lower your shields? While we're at it, where is the freaking ship security?! Why is nobody armed?! Why isn't Spore chamber constantly guarded? It's the most important strategic asset Federation has and it has zero protection?! Why didn't Saru request more security personnel? Why isn't selfdestruct armed and on dead man's switch?! So many options and yet Tilly chose none of them.
At best, she's whiz kid that loves to explore. At worst... well... she lost Discovery.
After the dust has settled Saru should have been demoted and removed as captain of Discovery and Tilly should be demoted to midshipman and prohibited from command track. Also, unless cricumstances are extraordinary, no crew would ever again be happy with captain, even acting captin, that lost his/her ship. Sadly, we don't even see Board of inquiry.
Also, as just another gripe, those turbolifts and inner workings of discovery are COMPLETLY out of scale with the actual size of the ship. Both that and sheer amount of wasted space is utterly mindboggling. I get that they want wider corridors, but space on spaceship is at premium. More space means more air is needed, more armor is needed, bigger shield emitters since you have more space to protect. I don't belive that designers had that much wasted space in mind when creating Discovery.
I never had much sympathy for Saru or Tilly, but since S03E11, I have a lot of trouble digesting Saru as captain and Tilly as anything but very junior crew member that shouldn't speak to anyone outranking her withouth being spoken to first.
Why Saru as captain is bad? He's overly timid as we can see in previous episodes. First, by letting the defeated Zareh go. You don't leave a threat like him walking around. By letting him go you're just enabling him to do more and more damage. He should have been killed and Saru, as Captain, should have done it himself. "We're Starfleet, leave criminals go free so they can do more damage." Great marketing. Second, once Osyraa started bombarding Books homeworld there's really on excuse not to engage her, especially after her weapons were disabled. Heck, Discovery should have pursued and knocked her out of warp and destroyed head of Emerald chain right there and then. "We're Starfleet, the bigger criminal you are, the sooner you can go free!!!" Even more great marketing. Later he becomes too emotional about seeing another Kelpian that's been dead for over half a century. Letting his emotions cloud the judgment is one of the cardinal sins that captain of starship does not have as luxury. But, most questionable decision was making ensgin Tilly his XO. He should have known that she just wasn't up to the task. I'll get into that later. By her own words, she didn't even finish leadership training course. Just asking her to become his XO shows serious, nay criminal, lack of judgment. I don't blame her for accepting. Once promotion was offered, turning it down, regardless of circumstances, is a black mark in your record. There probably won't be another opportunity for career advancement or it will come years after rest her class has already advanced more gradually. Saru put her in bad position and really left her no choice.
Why Tilly as XO is bad? Too much responosibility, not enough skill and experience in a nutshell. She never commanded even an away team, there's no track record of her taking leadrship position anywhere in the entire series. Not even her science team. She can analyze as good or even better than other science officers, but she never led even a project. As XO her duties are ensuring the ship is functioning properly (regular maintenance), supplies are at optimum levels, crew is well trained (especiall cross training). While we see some glimpse of Tilly handling those duties, when shit hit the fan, crew is woefully unprepared to handle the challenge. How they managed to survive so far is beyond me. Lack of her experience shows the most when dealing with Osyraa. First of, with spore drive there's really no sense in keeping staiton in front of Veridian Nebula. They can instantly jump there from... anywhere. Why didn't they jump to Starfleet headquarters had their shields repaired in half the time and been ready to jump in whenever they are needed?
When they detected "Federation ship" that gives good codes, but won't hail them... oh man, so many options here. Cloak and move away from them? Jump on the OTHER side of Veridian Nebula and still be at staion to assist Saru? Jump away from them after first comms exchange? Don't lower your shields? While we're at it, where is the freaking ship security?! Why is nobody armed?! Why isn't Spore chamber constantly guarded? It's the most important strategic asset Federation has and it has zero protection?! Why didn't Saru request more security personnel? Why isn't selfdestruct armed and on dead man's switch?! So many options and yet Tilly chose none of them.
At best, she's whiz kid that loves to explore. At worst... well... she lost Discovery.
After the dust has settled Saru should have been demoted and removed as captain of Discovery and Tilly should be demoted to midshipman and prohibited from command track. Also, unless cricumstances are extraordinary, no crew would ever again be happy with captain, even acting captin, that lost his/her ship. Sadly, we don't even see Board of inquiry.
Also, as just another gripe, those turbolifts and inner workings of discovery are COMPLETLY out of scale with the actual size of the ship. Both that and sheer amount of wasted space is utterly mindboggling. I get that they want wider corridors, but space on spaceship is at premium. More space means more air is needed, more armor is needed, bigger shield emitters since you have more space to protect. I don't belive that designers had that much wasted space in mind when creating Discovery.
