^ Scotty never seemed to be lacking in command ability. He showed several times that he was an excellent commander. He could have been as good a CO as he was an engineer.
What Starfleet position would you aim for? (Choose up to 3)
- Thread starter bbjeg
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He is. What I meant was you wouldn't choose Scotty for an away mission evolving scanning an area, which Spock would be better at with his science background regardless of the fact they both have command experience.
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Well I went Intelligence (data analyst, not spa), R&D, and lastly, counseling.
Half-joking. Not "bigoted", exactly, but I really don't think he thought that the situation they were in was a good time to test whether or not the artificial man could be a good exec - and I'm not sure he'd have had that doubt about a human crewman that had served with him for as long and in the same capacity.
If you were to argue that Starfleet in general, and not Riker in particular, would no doubt have some misgivings about Data being XO, then that's entirely possible. "The Offspring" takes place only shortly before BoBW, and shows that Starfleet is still shaky about some aspects of Data's status and rights as a sentient being (and of course, there's Christopher Hobson in "Redemption" later on - I believe his reaction to represent an extreme, not mainstream, reaction to Data being in command, but still, it shows that at least some in Starfleet would be uneasy about it).
But Riker, specifically? He would be less inclined to think poorly of the idea than the average non-Enterprise Starfleet officer, if anything, considering Data already is the 2nd officer on the Ent-D during the entirety of Riker's time on the ship and has been given command of the bridge several times when Riker and Picard are away. And of course, his feelings on Data were made pretty clear in "The Measure of a Man."
I thought that was just Hobson's POV and no one else's. Clearly Starfleet, as such, has no problem with Data being in command, otherwise they wouldn't have let him have one.
As much as we all love Data, though, I find it difficult to oppose Hobson, at least on principle. He has never served with Data before and so he couldn't be expected to know Data's command abilities. So therefore it's understandable that Hobson is uneasy about serving under Data.
Plus, if I were Hobson, I would have pointed out that Data's angry outburst against him (threatening to relieve him of command) has to be fake, since it's general knowledge that Data doesn't have emotions.
^True, and Data can give simulated responses (that look emotional) in order to command or do anything evolving communication. When I saw that scene I hoped Data would learn his emotions like that (excluding that episode when he dated that girl). He just installs a chip though. Fun but less of a journey.
