Weird promotion practices

[kkozoriz1]

You really need this explained too? Chief Olsen died. Scotty, a Starfleet engineer with the rank of Lt. Commander, took over the engineering department when he came on board the ship. It's extremely likely he came along at the request of Old Spock. Why did Scotty take over? The ship was clearly lacking senior staff, and as Lt. Commander he very likely had seniority in the department.

Makes sense to me.

Can you show me where Spock asked Scotty to go along with Kirk?

And you really believe that Starfleet sent out it's newest ship, completely untried with ONE experienced engineering officer and the rest of the crew made up of cadets? And Pike had that one experienced officer go on a risky mission to stop the drill?

I'm surprised Starfleet can get anything done since it appears that personnel can pick and choose where they want to go, regardless of their orders.
Kirk goes AWOL from the Academy, gets assigned as First Officer.
Uhura refuses to go to her assigned ship so she can be with her boyfriend instead.
Scotty leaves his assigned post and goes to the Enterprise based, KingDaniel would have us believe, on the word of someone he's never met before.

Pretty cool gig. "I don't want to go to that remote border outpost. It's lonely and somebody may blow it up. I think my duty station is actually a cabana on Risa."

 

[F. King Daniel]

Why do you need everything explained to you, kkozoriz1? Are you entirely incapable of figuring anything out for yourself, unless they spell it out on screen? Spock insisted on Kirk going back to the Enterprise and taking over. Do you really think he would keep Scotty behind on his little historical re-enactment of the Enterprise crew?

I think you actually understand all this perfectly well. I'm sorry the sillier aspects of the movie upset you so, and that you refuse to suspend disbelief even a little bit. Stop trolling.

 

[BillJ]

You really need this explained too? Chief Olsen died. Scotty, a Starfleet engineer with the rank of Lt. Commander, took over the engineering department when he came on board the ship. It's extremely likely he came along at the request of Old Spock. Why did Scotty take over? The ship was clearly lacking senior staff, and as Lt. Commander he very likely had seniority in the department.

Makes sense to me.

Can you show me where Spock asked Scotty to go along with Kirk?

And you really believe that Starfleet sent out it's newest ship, completely untried with ONE experienced engineering officer and the rest of the crew made up of cadets? And Pike had that one experienced officer go on a risky mission to stop the drill?

I'm surprised Starfleet can get anything done since it appears that personnel can pick and choose where they want to go, regardless of their orders.
Kirk goes AWOL from the Academy, gets assigned as First Officer.
Uhura refuses to go to her assigned ship so she can be with her boyfriend instead.
Scotty leaves his assigned post and goes to the Enterprise based, KingDaniel would have us believe, on the word of someone he's never met before.

Pretty cool gig. "I don't want to go to that remote border outpost. It's lonely and somebody may blow it up. I think my duty station is actually a cabana on Risa."

The biggest flaw with this film isn't the Time Travel or the Red Matter or Nero or blowing up Vulcan... it's that the film fails 'common sense' too many times.

Kirk, the Cadet stowaway, who is promoted to First Officer and then Captain. I saw tons of people running around this film with Lieutenant and Lieutenant Commander stripes and yet no one but Kirk was qualified for Command?

Uhura,

PIKE: Scan Vulcan space, check for any transmissions in Romulan.
MALE LIEUTENANT: Sir, I'm not sure I can distinguish the Romulan language from Vulcan.
PIKE: (to Uhura) What about you? Do you speak Romulan, Cadet?
UHURA: All three dialects, sir.
PIKE: Uhura, relieve the lieutenant.

So the only qualification for manning the communications station on a state of the art starship is speaking Romulan?

Spock, who not only teaches a communications course at the Academy, programs the Kobyashi Maru and is the executive officer of the Federations 'newest flagship'. And then gives his girlfriend the assignment on the Enterprise too because she demands it. So that also means that Spock has a hand in starship assignments. Plus he deprived the Farragut of a communications specialist.

Add on top of that Scotty (an experienced officer) abandoned his post on the word of a stowaway cadet, Pike getting promoted to Admiral for nothing more than getting captured at the first opportunity and no one even checking to see if a long range comm system existed on Delta Vega.

 

[BillJ]

I think you actually understand all this perfectly well. I'm sorry the sillier aspects of the movie upset you so, and that you refuse to suspend disbelief even a little bit. Stop trolling.

Why is it trolling when someone points out legitimate concerns with the film? I give Star Trek more leeway in storytelling 'reaches' then anything else I've watched. But this film took it a bit to far. YMMV

 

[kkozoriz1]

The biggest flaw with this film isn't the Time Travel or the Red Matter or Nero or blowing up Vulcan... it's that the film fails 'common sense' too many times.

Kirk, the Cadet stowaway, who is promoted to First Officer and then Captain. I saw tons of people running around this film with Lieutenant and Lieutenant Commander stripes and yet no one but Kirk was qualified for Command?

Uhura,

PIKE: Scan Vulcan space, check for any transmissions in Romulan.
MALE LIEUTENANT: Sir, I'm not sure I can distinguish the Romulan language from Vulcan.
PIKE: (to Uhura) What about you? Do you speak Romulan, Cadet?
UHURA: All three dialects, sir.
PIKE: Uhura, relieve the lieutenant.

So the only qualification for manning the communications station on a state of the art starship is speaking Romulan?

Spock, who not only teaches a communications course at the Academy, programs the Kobyashi Maru and is the executive officer of the Federations 'newest flagship'. And then gives his girlfriend the assignment on the Enterprise too because she demands it. So that also means that Spock has a hand in starship assignments. Plus he deprived the Farragut of a communications specialist.

Add on top of that Scotty (an experienced officer) abandoned his post on the word of a stowaway cadet, Pike getting promoted to Admiral for nothing more than getting captured at the first opportunity and no one even checking to see if a long range comm system existed on Delta Vega.

Good point about the Romulan/Vulcan language thing. So Romulan is as different from Vulcan as British, American and Australian English are from each other? They're so close that the comm officer can't tell the difference?

Spock may not have deprived the Farragut of a communications officer. Spock may have reassigned someone from the Enterprise to the Farragut. Of course, that person is now very dead because Uhura wanted to to be on the Enterprise. No biggie though

Let's not forget that the only reason that our intrepid crew is still alive is because Sulu didn't remember to remove the parking brake.

Too many coincidences.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Why do you need everything explained to you, kkozoriz1? Are you entirely incapable of figuring anything out for yourself, unless they spell it out on screen? Spock insisted on Kirk going back to the Enterprise and taking over. Do you really think he would keep Scotty behind on his little historical re-enactment of the Enterprise crew?

I think you actually understand all this perfectly well. I'm sorry the sillier aspects of the movie upset you so, and that you refuse to suspend disbelief even a little bit. Stop trolling.

Trolling? Trolling?? Discussing promotion problems in a topic dedicated to that very matter is trolling??

I'm sorry that I prefer the heroes in movies to win by virtue of being smarter than their opponents, no having the pieces of the solution fall into their laps through no effort of their own.

 

[BillJ]

Too many coincidences.

I don't mind a coincidence or two to get a film going. Sometimes it can even be fun to watch a storyteller 'connect the dots'. But I think Orci and Kurtzman abused the tactic, making the entire story build on one coincidence after another.

 

[kkozoriz1]

I recall reading an interview with Abrams saying that the universe was trying to heal itself. It makes you wonder just how it was doing that and how much further it will go. Has it stopped now that the original crew is all together or will it continue to grow more like the prime universe?

"“In the scene, Spock explains that (the encounter of Kirk and Spock Prime) is a result of the universe trying to restore balance after the time line is changed,” Abrams said. “They acknowledged the coincidence as a function of the universe to heal itself.”

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/10/abrams-star-trek-dvd-sequel/

 

[F. King Daniel]

All the talk of coincidence can be equally applied to every alternate universe episode in Trek. Despite circumstances far more diverse than Kirk's dad dying 25 years earlier (going back to the time of Shakespeare at least, according to "In a Mirror, Darkly"), the crews of the NX-01 and 1701 Enterprises were all together, at their correct posts (bar Sulu who doubled as security chief), in the same eras as their prime-universe counterparts, and the DS9 crews' counterparts' lives were all intertwined. Yet viewers suspend their disbelief in those instances and accept what they're seeing despite the chances of it happening when everything else is so different are astronomical.

How is STXI any different?

 

[kkozoriz1]

We don't know how those crews came together. If it was due to such a flimsy series of coincidences as it was in XI then I'd dislike that too.

The big deal about the mirror universe was that it was supposed to be the same as the prime universe only evil. It's a simple slip of the existing universe.

The NuUniverse was a chance to see why these people would serve together. Why the crew in the prime universe worked so well together. Why they had such a bond. Why they would be willing to sacrifice everything to save Spock. What we got was a hot shot womanizer who didn't need anyone to save the Earth. Pretty much any other character could have filled in for the rest of the crew.

Uhura wouldn't have joined in anything approaching the same way. He "in" to the action was her romantic relationship with Spock and her understand of the Romulan Language. No contact with the Romulans in the Prime Universe, no Uhura.

Sulu forgetting to release the parking brake, saving everyone due to bad luck. Saving Kirk on the drill when it should have been a security officer rather than the helmsman. We know that there were security personnel on the Enterprise. Why would you take your helmsman? Because it gave Sulu something to do.

Chekov saving Sulu and Kirk because the transporter operators are less well trained than a 17 year old cadet.

McCoy snuck Kirk onto the ship for no particular reason and then pretty much just hung out in the background.

Scotty just happened to be on the planet where Nero left Spock and NuSpock left Kirk. Kirk and Spock both just happened to be within walking distance of the outpost. Why did Scotty come along? Who knows. The reason is that he was needed for comedy relief.

Feel free to enjoy XI. Feel free to expect a plot that makes no sense. As long as it's exciting with lots of sparkly lights and kewl little bits tacked together who cares if it makes sense.

 

[Pauln6]

I recall reading an interview with Abrams saying that the universe was trying to heal itself. It makes you wonder just how it was doing that and how much further it will go. Has it stopped now that the original crew is all together or will it continue to grow more like the prime universe?

"“In the scene, Spock explains that (the encounter of Kirk and Spock Prime) is a result of the universe trying to restore balance after the time line is changed,” Abrams said. “They acknowledged the coincidence as a function of the universe to heal itself.”

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/10/abrams-star-trek-dvd-sequel/

Their explanation makes no sense though. There is nothing for the universe to heal in many worlds theory. The original timeline is intact, Spock and Nero have just jumped tracks into a different timeline. Everything in this timline is playing out exactly as it should. Some 'force' may have a hand in what's happening (and the possibility that the entire Federation is being mind controlled is a preferable explanation for this level of coincidence) but that force isn't trying to rectify anything. They don't seem to get their own theory?

 

[F. King Daniel]

it was supposed to be the same as the prime universe only evil. It's a simple slip of the existing universe

No it's not. It wasn't "evil opposites" of events that occured, but very different histories altogether. A 22nd century war with the Tholians, the TOS Defiant in the 2150's, Kirk killing Pike, a Klingon/Cardassian alliance, etc. Let's not forget that in Mirror DS9, Vic is somehow a flesh and blood being.

Sulu forgetting to release the parking brake, saving everyone due to bad luck

Funny, I would have called that good luck

Feel free to enjoy XI

Why thank you, kind sir.

 

[kkozoriz1]

it was supposed to be the same as the prime universe only evil. It's a simple slip of the existing universe

No it's not. It wasn't "evil opposites" of events that occured, but very different histories altogether. A 22nd century war with the Tholians, the TOS Defiant in the 2150's, Kirk killing Pike, a Klingon/Cardassian alliance, etc. Let's not forget that in Mirror DS9, Vic is somehow a flesh and blood being.

Sulu forgetting to release the parking brake, saving everyone due to bad luck

Funny, I would have called that good luck

Feel free to enjoy XI

Why thank you, kind sir.

McCoy ended up with the exact same acid stain on his lab table even though the history was totally different?

You're right. Let's call Sulu's screw up stupidity instead. Much better for our heroes to get ahead through stupidity rather than intelligence, training, cooperation and hard work. Boy, just imagine how well thing would work out if they screwed up all the time. Captain Kirk meets Maxwell Smart. Brilliant!

 

[F. King Daniel]

Watch the mirror universe episodes. History was totally different, the apex being that Vic's a flesh and blood human in the 24th century! It's fantasy land nonsense that makes Kirk finding Spock in an ice cave and then bumping into Scotty seem like the most plausible thing in the galaxy.

 

[kkozoriz1]

I'm comparing the first mirror universe story to the first NuUniverse story. Later stories can take a different spin on things, let's compare the first with the first.

And who's to say that Vic wasn't based on someone in DS9?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ The mirror Vic could have been Felix. Remember him? Felix created the program. It is likely that Felix modelled Vic's appearance on himself, just like Doc Zimmerman did with the EMH.

AFAIK, nobody actually calls Mirror Vic any name. So he *could* be Felix.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

He saved Earth. They promoted him. Welcome to Star Trek, in business since 1966.

 

[Gepard]

He saved Earth. They promoted him. Welcome to Star Trek, in business since 1966.

Except when you save Earth and they demote you, or whatever is necessary to get you in command of the Enterprise.

 

[kkozoriz1]

He saved Earth. They promoted him. Welcome to Star Trek, in business since 1966.

And he did it all by himself. Nobody else raised so much as a finger.

 

[Jack Bauer]

They helped but they weren't in charge...so no promotion. That sucks but life isn't fair.