When SHOULD Riker have left?

[at Quark's]

But the Riker we knew back then appeared to want wildly improbable, insane and dangerous adventures.

Even the novels have noted that to some degree TNG and everything that followed can be divided into pre and post-Borg, in the sense that "BoBW" and to a lesser extent "Q Who" brought home indisputable evidence that the "great unknown" in fact had at least one race that was actively hostile and vastly technologically superior to Our Heroes.

We already knew of species that were, or had been vastly superior to the Federation (take the Q, or the Iconians or the T' Kon for example), and they'd already run into hostile species, too (those parasites from Season 1). Taken together with the vastness of the unexplored areas of the galaxy, it would just seem a matter of time before they'd encounter a species that combined those two attributes. And that's just based on the encounters of the enterprise-D till that point in time, and not even including all those of the original Enterprise, so one could ask himself why Starfleet was so optimistic and perhaps almost naive about this up until that point in time.

I don't agree with Picard being dangerous and irresponsible adrenaline junkie who takes the ship into a dangerous roller coaster ride. But, it's a TV show, if weird and interesting adventures didn't happen, would the viewers like it?

Well, perhaps I was just making a joke there. That being said, you still can argue about how smart it was (in-universe) to send a large luxury liner filled with civilians sailing into the unknown (see also the first point) but there have been threads in the past discussing this question in depth.

 

[Tenacity]

Riker watches the Q trial of humanity thing

How did they obtain a video of that in order for Riker to watch it?

 

[at Quark's]

How did they obtain a video of that in order for Riker to watch it?

Actually I vaguely wondered about that, too when rewatching it recently. Just assuming they have built-in recording devices in their commbadges or some such thing.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Well he had at least 2 options, being captain of the Drake or being Picard's #1, & he chose the latter. I assume he could have remained #1 on the Hood as well, but was looking for better availabilities. DeSoto certainly regretting Will leaving.

That seems likely.

Sisko is an interesting case, I hadn't considered much. Wasn't his former Captain Leyton responsible for him being promoted to commander, prior to DS9? & that the promotion came with the assignment, but he wasn't sure if he'd take it or not, & that mostly hinged on whether he was leaving entirely?

LEYTON: Ironic, isn't it? When you came on board the Okinawa, you were more interested in engineering and ship design than command. But I promoted you to lieutenant commander, gave you the post of executive officer, and taught you everything I knew about being a leader.
SISKO: You were a good teacher.


So we only have canon that credits Leyton with promoting Sisko to Lieutenant Commander and XO of the Okinawa (presumably he was Chief Engineer or Operations Manager before that), starting his journey to CO of DS9 rather than organising the end result.

 

[DonIago]

We already knew of species that were, or had been vastly superior to the Federation (take the Q, or the Iconians or the T' Kon for example), and they'd already run into hostile species, too (those parasites from Season 1). Taken together with the vastness of the unexplored areas of the galaxy, it would just seem a matter of time before they'd encounter a species that combined those two attributes. And that's just based on the encounters of the enterprise-D till that point in time, and not even including all those of the original Enterprise, so one could ask himself why Starfleet was so optimistic and perhaps almost naive about this up until that point in time.

It may have been inevitable that the Feds would eventually find a race that was both more technologically advanced and would immediately set their sets upon the Federation when made aware of its existence, but I'm not sure that such a thing had actually happened since the Klingon and/or Romulan Wars?

 

[Mojochi]

LEYTON: Ironic, isn't it? When you came on board the Okinawa, you were more interested in engineering and ship design than command. But I promoted you to lieutenant commander, gave you the post of executive officer, and taught you everything I knew about being a leader.
SISKO: You were a good teacher.


So we only have canon that credits Leyton with promoting Sisko to Lieutenant Commander and XO of the Okinawa (presumably he was Chief Engineer or Operations Manager before that), starting his journey to CO of DS9 rather than organising the end result.

That's kind of what had me thinking that Sisko sort of boxed himself into the command track after taking Leyton's promotion to XO. So, when he ended up with down time after the Fleet Yard Defiant project those were the only spots they considered him for

I don't see why he couldn't have switched tracks though, maybe went back into engineering. I mean Laforge held the rank of commander in his role as Chief Engineer. Maybe Ben hadn't actually advanced to that level, to be considered for someone's chief engineer spot?

The only time I ever recall anyone taking a rank reduction to switch fields was O'Brien, & I'm not even sure at all wtf happened there lol

But it seems like DS9 was a posting commensurate with Ben's current career track, & maybe there just wasn't much out there for the likes of him. I suppose if Will had gotten off his butt & became a captain, he might've made way for Sisko go & become Picard's XO

 

[at Quark's]

But it seems like DS9 was a posting commensurate with Ben's current career track, & maybe there just wasn't much out there for the likes of him. I suppose if Will had gotten off his butt & became a captain, he might've made way for Sisko go & become Picard's XO

<First Contact>
PICARD: This is Captain Picard of the Enterprise. I am taking command of the fleet. Target all of your weapons onto the following coordinates. ...Fire on my command.
SISKO: <ice cold glare> And you're absolutely certain, they're holding no female civilian at that location, Sir?

Nah, not sure that combination would have worked out smoothly

It may have been inevitable that the Feds would eventually find a race that was both more technologically advanced and would immediately set their sets upon the Federation when made aware of its existence, but I'm not sure that such a thing had actually happened since the Klingon and/or Romulan Wars?

I'm sure they met races that could have fit the profile (e.g. the Kelvans, although you could argue they were just trying to survive). Or if they didn't meet entire races, they certainly met evidence of such. After all, someone must have built that Doomsday Machine (Though of course that could have simply been an experiment horribly gone wrong). Or think of the V' ger probe, or the whale probe that, while not necessarily explicitly hostile would have had no compunctions about destroying Earth. They were all essentially built by alien civilizations. It's just that up until that point in the series the threat always could be ended by a genius tactical trick of Kirk exploiting a loophole within that same episode. But then again, even the Borg (partially) met that fate, just not within the same episode (when they were put to sleep in BOBW, and one could argue that what happened to them in Endgame was also a taste of that medicine). So the only real difference I can find between the Borg and those other threats on that score is simply that the threat was not contained within a single episode. But yes, I agree that it changed the "taste" of the series, having a threat that would not be dealt with within 45 minutes.

 

[Tenacity]

Just assuming they have built-in recording devices in their commbadges or some such thing.

Would have come in handy when Riker was being framed for murder of the scientist, or lot's of other times.

SISKO: <ice cold glare> And you're absolutely certain, they're holding no female civilian at that location, Sir?

Picard: I am absolutely certain that there are civilians on Earth Mr. Sisko, do try to remember your duty.

 

[at Quark's]

Would have come in handy when Riker was being framed for murder of the scientist, or lot's of other times.Picard: I am absolutely certain that there are civilians on Earth Mr. Sisko, do try to remember your duty.

Perhaps they're not recording in their standard mode of operation. Riker had no inkling of anything being wrong until he had beamed off the station, IIRC. On the other hand, Picard &Crew would have suspected something was very wrong the moment Q started pulling his tricks and could certainly have activated them the moment they were transported to the post-atomic horror court.

 

[JesterFace]

That being said, you still can argue about how smart it was (in-universe) to send a large luxury liner filled with civilians sailing into the unknown (see also the first point) but there have been threads in the past discussing this question in depth.

Smart or not, those who were on starships flying around made that choise and to take those risks.
Children obviously didn't but their parents decided for them.
I cant believe no one is paid. There must be somekind of payment for hazardous work.
I wouldn't risk everything just to work on a starship for free.
But that's a thing for another topic.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

The only time I ever recall anyone taking a rank reduction to switch fields was O'Brien, & I'm not even sure at all wtf happened there lol

Honestly, the simplest explanation of the O'Brien issue is wardrobe department errors/disinterest in s1-3 as with the exception of a single throway "Lieutenant" by Riker (not present in the st-minutiae version of the script), there is no reference to O'Brien as a Lieutenant prior to him to a specifically scripted reference to him being a Chief Petty Officer in Family. It's a matter of taste whether you would prefer that he would always have worn the black pip on the service and dress uniforms (indeed he wears the black pip on a dress uniform after the introduction of the grey NCO patch), or whether he "actually" wore two silver rather than two gold pips and perhaps the silver badge worn by Acting Ensign Crusher (similar to Patrol Officers wearing silver shields vs the gold shields of Detectives and Senior Officers).

 

[Mojochi]

Honestly, the simplest explanation of the O'Brien issue is wardrobe department errors/disinterest in s1-3 as with the exception of a single throway "Lieutenant" by Riker (not present in the st-minutiae version of the script), there is no reference to O'Brien as a Lieutenant prior to him to a specifically scripted reference to him being a Chief Petty Officer in Family. It's a matter of taste whether you would prefer that he would always have worn the black pip on the service and dress uniforms (indeed he wears the black pip on a dress uniform after the introduction of the grey NCO patch), or whether he "actually" wore two silver rather than two gold pips and perhaps the silver badge worn by Acting Ensign Crusher (similar to Patrol Officers wearing silver shields vs the gold shields of Detectives and Senior Officers).

I was more referring to Miles serving as Ben Maxwell's tactical officer at some time before Farpoint. All uniform nonsense aside, because of that bit of history, I always felt like he had been a legit officer at some point, leaving Starfleet after the war, but it was still the best place for a guy with his skills, so he came back, but in a minor type way, as a chief petty officer

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

I was more referring to Miles serving as Ben Maxwell's tactical officer at some time before Farpoint.

It depends what role that a Tactical Officer is required to fill:

The simple is that they should have said he was a tactical officer on the Rutledge (and the most skilled), rather than the Tactical Officer. On the other hand:

If a tactical officer only needs to be the duty "button pusher" on the Bridge, then it's roughly equivalent to the Navy Gunner's Mate rating (possibly with Fire Controlman/Control Technican and Missile Technican) so could be held by as little as a rated Crewman (E2 or E3), although the Leading Tactical Officer, as the line manager for the Armory team would probably be at least a (Leading) Petty Officer (~E6).

On the other hand, if the (Chief) Tactical Officer is always a ranking officer (4th to 1st Officer), then obviously the post holder would need to be at least a Provisional/Acting Lieutenant, even if most of the ranking officers were killed, injured or missing.

 

[Mojochi]

It depends what role that a Tactical Officer is required to fill:

The simple is that they should have said he was a tactical officer on the Rutledge (and the most skilled), rather than the Tactical Officer. On the other hand:

If a tactical officer only needs to be the duty "button pusher" on the Bridge, then it's roughly equivalent to the Navy Gunner's Mate rating (possibly with Fire Controlman/Control Technican and Missile Technican) so could be held by as little as a rated Crewman (E2 or E3), although the Leading Tactical Officer, as the line manager for the Armory team would probably be at least a (Leading) Petty Officer (~E6).

On the other hand, if the (Chief) Tactical Officer is always a ranking officer (4th to 1st Officer), then obviously the post holder would need to be at least a Provisional/Acting Lieutenant, even if most of the ranking officers were killed, injured or missing.

Maxwell made it seem like Miles was an indispensable component of his overall tactical platform during wartime, calling him the best he ever had, & able to remarkably size up situations instantly, & come up with options to fit all contingencies. That doesn't sound like someone who'd be just a garden variety button pusher

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

Maybe Miles resigned his commission after the Cardassian war and later came back as an NCO in engineering as it is a less military role than tactical.

As for rank in star trek I always found it very confusing as almost everyone seemed to be at least an ensign and outside of O'Brien we saw very few regularcrewmen

 

[Takeru]

I do wonder if they'd had Riker accept the Aries back in S2 what might've happened, especially with Worf eager to join him, so they might've lost two senior officers. It stands to reason Data would become the new Number One, but that then leaves Ops Manager and Security Chief vacant which could've seen two newcomers join the cast--ideally I'd loved to have seen two aliens, with the new officer at Ops being female.

In that case I don't think they would have created a new character for Ops, they would have put an extra there like they did at the conn when Wil Wheaton left or maybe they would have removed the station altogether having just the pilot in the front. With Data as first officer he still could have done all the exposition and science dialog Data always had, or maybe split it with Deanna, have her answer Picard's usual "What do we know about this planet/species/phenomenon?" questions with her looking up information about previous encounters and Data scanning and oberserving the current situation. That would have given both officers at Picard's side more to do.

I would have liked a new security chief, a woman again, maybe bolian?

 

[Ghrakh]

"TNG sucked because everyone was perfect. Riker sucked because he wasn't perfect."

 

[diankra]

If Jellico and Picard's reports on Riker were contradictory, Starfleet might conclude that Riker works well as Picard's XO, but isn't suited to any other role.