What Would Jellico Do?
- Thread starter Ragitsu
- Start date
There's no indication it was (at least, not within DS9), but Sisko had to clear with Starfleet Command that he would try to hand senator Vreenak a forged recording. So some within Starfleet command must have known, and therefore, there's always the risk the Romulans will find out at some point in the future.
There is every reason to suspect that his every action, behavior, posture, & order were preplanned & mission specific, & not in ANY way truly reflective of the man himself, under routine circumstances.
Every judgment about his style of captaining is based on one impromptu mission alone. Part of that mission involved knowingly taking command of a seasoned crew, who without question would find the removal of their standing captain objectionable. There is no way a competent commander would not have taken that bias into account & adjusted their posture to prevent it having deleterious effects on the mission.
He knows they don't want him before he ever steps on board... & that can't be allowed to be a factor in their dynamic. In a time sensitive nearly impossible mission, the choice is be a doormat, or be a tyrant. The "honeymoon" that would ordinarily establish the kind of homeostatic relationship Picard has with that crew is not afforded them
Being an unreasonable asshole was the job they assigned him. He aready has a crew, which he's commanded in protracted service aboard the Cairo. That ought to be proof enough he knows how to command a crew sustainably, despite this mission not being designed to allow for such.
Personally, I don't think he ever planned to be the permanent captain of the D. His plan was to try his best to make a short notice mission with an unwanted captain succeed regardless. I think Picard would have to do many of the same things, were he boxed into a scenario like that
^And Picard would probably be able to play the part convincingly, too. He was also adept at playing that seedy half-criminal in Gambit when his mission required it.
As to the OP, I'd say it's really hard to put any kind of reliable angle on how Jellico might handle situations we've seen Picard in, when we know so little about the man, & much of what we saw, might not be a true representation of him, but rather a fixed position he had to assume.
About the only way I could tackle some of it is by generalizing, & extrapolating from what we know of Picard's character/history in how it might have influenced his take versus someone else who's not him
For example, I doubt Jellico, or any captain maybe, would've done anything quite like what Picard did with Wesley. Something tells me his motives for how he mentored him were largely influenced by having personally known & had close feelings for his parents & been responsible in some way for his father's death. To Jellico, he's just the CMO's smart kid
As to something like The Wounded situation, the mission was to preserve the peace. I don't see how any captain would have much choice but to manage things the way Picard did, except maybe if they sympathized a bit more, then they might not have laid such a lofty dressing down on Maxwell about it
So too was the Pegasus a clear breach of treaty, & actions to the same effect might be in order for any officer. I would like to think a more pragmatic captain might not have been so reckless as to just expose everything to the nearest Romulan ship though. There's whistleblowing, & then there's undermining the well being of your federation, & what Picard did there kind of walks a pretty thin line. I'm not saying I disagree necessarily, because there might have been no other way to avoid a whole new coverup, but maybe Jellico doesn't blow it open in such a pronounced way.
About the only way I could tackle some of it is by generalizing, & extrapolating from what we know of Picard's character/history in how it might have influenced his take versus someone else who's not him
For example, I doubt Jellico, or any captain maybe, would've done anything quite like what Picard did with Wesley. Something tells me his motives for how he mentored him were largely influenced by having personally known & had close feelings for his parents & been responsible in some way for his father's death. To Jellico, he's just the CMO's smart kid
As to something like The Wounded situation, the mission was to preserve the peace. I don't see how any captain would have much choice but to manage things the way Picard did, except maybe if they sympathized a bit more, then they might not have laid such a lofty dressing down on Maxwell about it
So too was the Pegasus a clear breach of treaty, & actions to the same effect might be in order for any officer. I would like to think a more pragmatic captain might not have been so reckless as to just expose everything to the nearest Romulan ship though. There's whistleblowing, & then there's undermining the well being of your federation, & what Picard did there kind of walks a pretty thin line. I'm not saying I disagree necessarily, because there might have been no other way to avoid a whole new coverup, but maybe Jellico doesn't blow it open in such a pronounced way.
I thought it fair to ask, given how some gush about Sisko and/or Garak; there's the belief that they pulled off the perfect crime.
Random observation: the Treaty of Algeron - as far as we are aware - makes no mention about the development of phase-shifting technology, correct? As long as you don't pursue cloaking technology, you're still left with a rather large tactical advantage.
It's a fair observation, but basically the Phasing Cloak isn't in the traditional sense a cloaking tech at all. It's a whole new thing. I doubt Pressman could hitch his wagon to that as a defense in trial, but it is.
Mostly, I think the spirit of the premise here is stealth tech in general. That's what a cloak screen is, & that's what a phase shift device aboard a ship is being primarily used for here. Ultimately, there is no phase shifting the ship, without it becomes invisible to anyone in the vicinity, essentially cloaking it. That result is inseparable from whatever intent it might otherwise serve
That said, I can envision some other useful applications of phase shifting the ship beyond cloaking it for stealth in conflicts, a situation involving phase shifted encounters, ala Time's Arrow, or Timescape, where having access to other phased states can offer more versatility of action, or even just something as simple as how they used it in the episode, to escape being trapped.
The interesting question I've always considered about this tech is that in many ways Star Trek's phasing of people/things is in essence time shifting. As Geordi puts it in Timescape, "Creating an artificial pocket of time" around them. So apart from it being especially tricky tech to manage in both The Next Phase & the Pegasus incidents, perpetrated by both Romulans & Starfleet, it also could have untold ramifications in temporal ways
I disagree that they "know" anything. All the Romulans would know for certain is that they trapped the Enterprise in an asteroid and now it's gone. Sure, they know *something* happened, but they really don't know what...
Regarding spies; I don't think that the Federation would spill their secrets out of fear that someone else may figure them out. First, the Federation should have some counter-intelligence agents working for them to prevent such leaks and B. If Picard intended to have the phase cloak program shut down anyway, there really isn't a huge possibility of a Romulan spy discovering a defunct program anyway. Even if Romulan spies did figure it out eventually, they really wouldn't be able to publicly act on the information since it would presumably expose their assets within the Federation. Picard essentially makes the entire thing public, giving the Romulans the ability to take the diplomatic moral high-ground.
I have a real world analogy related to this. At about the time this episode aired, I was a cook and had a restaurant manager who was a military reservist. He was very strict and wanted things his way. He demanded that the kitchen be spotless every night before anyone went home. Since the kitchen was always kept this way, it wasn't difficult to maintain. Unfortunately, our location closed and my manager and I were transferred to a different restaurant.
When we arrived, he still demanded the kitchen be spotless at the end of every night. The kitchen staff at the new restaurant were pissed and hated the guy. He changed procedures and his quality demands meant that the kitchen staff spent several extra hours every night getting the kitchen up to his expectations. The argument was he was too rigid and should have changed to match how this location did things. . .
. . . Then something changed. Once the kitchen got up to the manger's standards, it didn't require any extra work to keep it that way. It didn't take more time to maintain the higher standards then it did the lower ones once the kitchen got up to par and slowly the kitchen staff really started to like the guy.
I see Jellico a lot like this. He is tough, has high standards (ex. everyone in duty uniforms), and he wants the duty shifts scheduled the way he deems most efficient. The crew is rankled by the changes. That doesn't mean that the captain should change for the crew (and Riker was way out of line), but rather that the crew needed time to adapt to a different set of standards. If memory serves, he even mentioned wishing he could give the crew more time to implement changes but that they needed to be ready to fight the Cardassians at a moments notice.
What possible plausible alternatives could there be? The only ones I can think of (such as 'spontaneous existence failure', or 'a naturally occuring rift in space-time that existed within the asteroid and that the Enterprise used to escape, but that has since then disappeared without a trace') are unlikely to the extreme. Besides, even if there were plausible alternatives (which I don't think there are), the Romulans, paranoid as they are, would still proceed from the worst case assumption (the worst case to the security of their empire, that is).
Picard's fear is not that the Romulans will find it out, but that, if they find it out after this incident (which I still think is highly likely), this will mean a devastating and irreparable blow to their relations.' The core point of Picard's argumentation is that the treaty was negotiated in good faith and they have violated that faith. Without a clear effort to show the Federation is still of good faith, even if a subgroup within the Federation wasn't and was attempting to develop this surrepetitiously, relations with the Romulans are toast. Frankly, I think that's the entire point of the episode.
I am not sure of that. First, we know that the counter-intelligence network is anything but foolproof. Otherwise, how could Commodore Oh have served within Starfleet for decades without being found out, and even become head of Starfleet Security? Romulan spy 'ambassador T'Pel' also wasn't found out by counterintelligence. That's already 2 people on highly sensitive positions. I also think there are indications in DS9 the Romulans know a lot more than they should, but I'm not entirely sure on this point. As for the publicly acting on this information, all they have to do is say: well, explain the Enterprise incident to us, then? How did that ship disappear from the asteroid but still remain in service? They don't even need to uncover their assets for that.
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In international (interspecies) diplomacy, its not about what they suspect, but about what they can prove. Had the Enterprise just disappeared and been located somewhere else later on, the Romulans only have suspicion with no evidence and the diplomatic optics of the suspicion look bad for them.
Romulan: "Hey, we trapped one of your ships in an asteroid and it disappeared! What gives?"
Federation Diplomat: "Wait, you intentionally trapped one of our starships?!?"
-Vs-
Picard decloaks.
Romulan "Remember the treaty you signed stating no cloaks for you? Yeah, here is a video feed of your starship directly violating it."
Federation Diplomat: "Eh. oops?"
Regarding Picard's "good faith" argument. As you indicated, the Romulans are a very paranoid group. I have a hard time buying that openly showing them that you've been lying is a great way to build trust. "Yeah, we have this cloak installed in our starship, but it was other people who made it. Honest!"
Finally, while counter-intelligence networks are anything but foolproof (even in the real world), nation-states don't just give up secrets out of fear that others will find out that they have them. For the duration of the cold war, the US and the USSR had intelligence assets on each other's soil, yet diplomacy continued. From a diplomatic standpoint, it's one thing to know what someone else is doing, but it's quite another to have proof, As an example, in 1958, a US spy-plane was shot down in USSR airspace. The USSR denied shooting it, saying only that the plane "fell" into their territory. The US denied it was a spy-plane at the time and the crew had cover stories about being on a routine mission. Even though both sides knew the other was lying, from a diplomatic standpoint, those lies allowed each side to continue talking and avoid open war. Picard openly decloaking directly in front of a ship full of Romulans is the equivalent to an officer of the USSR going on TV in '58 and saying, "Sure we shot the snot out of that plane, but it was only the bad Russians who did it..."
BTW, I don't think that the Federation *should* lie or vioilate treaties. All I am saying is that Picard's decision would have made the situation worse, not better, for the Federation.
In the short term, perhaps, but not over the long term.
I liked Ronny Cox in at least the first season of Apple's Way, but I intensely disliked Jellico.
Many people do. But while I don't think much of some command decisions he made, I don't think he's as bad as he's made out to be.
As much as Jellico rubs me wrong way, I cannot see him agreeing with Alkar's decision to foist mental STDs on Deanna without her consent.
Uh, I don't think we're talking about anything analogous to Pa'nar Syndrome here. Alkar was more akin to a vampire.
I think Jellico would have recognized the futility of arguing with a being that is essentially omnipotent. He would have treated Q the way a reasonable man treats a natural phenomenon like a storm or a Tsunami.
Jellico would have recognized the futility of trying to punish someone who's basically omnipotent.
Jellico has kids of his own so he may have understood Weysley a lot better than Picard and been less awkward around him. I can't picture for the life of me Jellico telling anyone to keep him away from children. He would likely laugh at Picard if he knew that about him.
Jellico would have found a way to search the ship if he knew it contained incriminating evidence. And Maxwell's action may have been thus vindicated
Jellico would have concluded that they spoke in gibberish and moved on to the next mission.
Jellico would have done something the moment he suspected foul play by Alcar and forced him to reverse the damage to Deanna before it was too extensive. He is a man of action, not hesitation.
He'd have called for reinforcements and stopped the sweep immediately.
Yeah, it's likely that he would have and IMO he would have been right. It's completely pointless to sign a treaty that gives assholes like the Romulans an advantage of such magnitude over the federation.