Still, the one implies the opportunity for the other.
What is a Centurion's rank?
- Thread starter Scott Kellogg
- Start date
Still, the one implies the opportunity for the other.
Indeed, command a starship would most likely be assigned to one who had served as second-in-command of a starship.
Unless the top rank is second in command. Like when Picard was reluctant to assign a ship to Data even though he had more than the qualifications for it and then when Data's second in command was reluctant to take his orders.
You can't extrapolate a general practice from an exceptional example like that. Especially since that resistance didn't hold -- Picard did give Data command.
I don't understand the desire to presume that the 23rd-century Starfleet was actually as sexist as TOS's flawed portrayal of it. There are a lot of ways in which TOS fell short in its depiction of the future -- technology that was obviously made in the 1960s, special effects where you could see the wires and matte lines, alien makeup where you could see the edges of the greasepaint, shots that relied on recognizable stock footage, etc. We know better than to take these things literally. We accept that they're not diegetic parts of the conjectural universe being depicted, but are merely errors and shortcomings in the dramatic recreation of that universe. Roddenberry himself encouraged fans to see TOS as an imperfect approximation, e.g. asking them to pretend that Klingons had always had ridged foreheads but TOS had just depicted them incorrectly. He didn't want the audience to take every imperfection in the show as literal in-universe fact.
The goal in TOS was to depict a future with gender equality. It fell short of that goal due to the sexism in the culture of its writers and producers, but that imperfection in the depiction shouldn't be presumed to be part of the thing being depicted, any more than we're supposed to believe that Sylvia and Korob's true forms literally had wires attached to them.
And understandably so.
This is absolutely not meant as a personal attack against Data. I mean, we the viewers are all familiar with him, we know he is more than a qualified commander. But from Hobson's perspective? He's never met Data before, he has no idea what kind of person Data is. For all Hobson knew, Data really was an unfeeling machine.
We know that's not true...but Hobson can't be expected to know that. Not right away. Given this, Hobson being a bit skittish is entirely understandable.
The weird thing is that, I believe Data would have described himself as an unfeeling machine.
At least until he got that "emotion chip" that turned him into a basket case.
That doesn't make sense. Someone who was barred from commanding a ship would never be assigned as second in command. One, because they might succeed to command, and two, because those opportunities would be used to provide experience to those who could eventually command themselves, not wasted on someone who couldn't progress further.
But Data was assigned, and Hobson did have to take his orders. I'm not sure what's comparable there.
No it's not. His superiors had made the decisions, his duty was to do his job for whomever was in charge.
There are plenty of times in history where orders have to be disregarded.
"I was only following orders." is not an acceptable defense in a court of law.
But as far as we know Data's orders were lawful. If Hobson thought that applied, he could refuse to obey and present that defense at his court martial.
That certainly doesn't apply to a case of a junior officer being bigoted against a senior officer who's entirely qualified and has done nothing wrong.
It's been at least more than 10 years since I saw that exchange on TV, but as I recall, the officer was questioning Data's orders since they endangered the crew with no explanation or justification from Data as to why at the time. I seem to think that he either requested an immediate transfer or offered to resign.
Wouldn't your arguments also apply to Kirk's refusal to follow M-5's orders?
Wouldn't your arguments also apply to Kirk's refusal to follow M-5's orders?
Oh, come on, we've seen that same thing happen with human commanding officers plenty of times. Captains are under no obligation to explain their orders to their subordinates -- that's the whole reason there's a chain of command. And there are plenty of situations where there's no time for a debate and swift obedience is required. Hobson was applying a double standard because he didn't trust an A.I. commander.
Maybe Hobson convinced himself he was disobeying an unlawful order, but that doesn't mean a Starfleet court would agree. That's only a defense against the charge of mutiny or insubordination if it's actually borne out after the fact. And Data's orders were valid and lawful, so Hobson's mistrust of them was wrong. He, not Data, was the one acting improperly.
Of course not, because the M-5 was not a commissioned officer or the recognized commander of the ship, merely a machine that was being tested for autonomous operation. Data is legally recognized as a person and a Starfleet officer and was the legitimately assigned commanding officer of that vessel.
IIRC he requested a transfer as soon as Data came aboard because he didn't want to serve under an android. Data denied the request. Later as they were going into action he questioned orders, Data said follow orders or you're relieved, Hobson followed the orders. He never offered to resign.
M-5 was not a superior officer. Kirk's orders from his superior officer were to let M-5 control the ship during the engagements of the exercise.
Although with an override switch installed so that he could shut it down if he judged it necessary, so Kirk was acting within his rightful authority when he tried to shut it down.
He was still referred to as "Decius" after being reduced two steps in rank. So it was his name.
I thought Decius was the one who said, "Permit me the glory of the kill, Commander."
This was also after his rank reduction, so it's not really clear where that put him in the chain of command since we don't know the ranks of the other officers (or his rank to begin with).
Kor
Last edited:
They removed them in the remastered version.
Which merely underlines the point that this is an artistic construct and not every detail has to be taken as literal fact.
Similar threads
