Why not promote Picard to admiral and let Enterprise D be his flagship

[Nebusj]

Re: Why not promote Picard to admiral and let Enterprise D be his flag

You raise many valid points. However, I believe there was a similar set-up with Battlestar Galactica, both old and new series. Since I haven't seen the new one, how do they address the points you brought up -- multiple commanders, etc.?

That's an excellent question and one deserving of a full and complete answer.

Speaking of Redemption, Pt. II, I would've used the Battle Bridge set to double as the Sutherland's bridge instead of using the "half-bathroom," as you called it.

I'm not sure but I suspect that Evil Tasha Yar might have been using the Battle Bridge for her bridge. I can't find a clear screenshot of her bridge, Modern Trek producers having no words in their language for ``establishing shot'', but http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s5/5x01/redemptiontwo068.jpg has a very suggestive curve to the door frame. They could have worked around that with a couple of redressings, although every one you do makes the production just that much harder on everybody.

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s5/5x01/redemptiontwo097.jpg meanwhile just begs for use in a Caption This thread.

 

[enan]

Re: Why not promote Picard to admiral and let Enterprise D be his flag

I would think that there has to be a certain desire to become an Admiral.

The way that they have Janeway written she clearly wants to one day be an Admiral. Sisko doesn't and Picard doesn't.

In TMP and TWoK; Kirk being and Admiral is against his nature and he is feeling old, and incomplete; it is not unil he is back on the bridge of the Enterprise that he feels like himself.
And if you look at his shoulder rank he is wearing; it is Captain after he takes command of the Enterprise during the Vegur mission.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: Why not promote Picard to admiral and let Enterprise D be his flag

I would think that there has to be a certain desire to become an Admiral.

The way that they have Janeway written she clearly wants to one day be an Admiral. Sisko doesn't and Picard doesn't.

I thought Sisko did have designs on the Admiralty one day?

 

[ialfan]

Re: Why not promote Picard to admiral and let Enterprise D be his flag

He did when he first came to DS9 but after a few years his priorities began to change.

 

[Mr. Fergy]

Re: Why not promote Picard to admiral and let Enterprise D be his flag

Bintak-

Are you a TNG fan? If not why don't you share your opinions in another lounge? Your not going to find many that accept your beliefs over here. It's a waste of time, IMHO.

 

[Red Ranger]

Re: Why not promote Picard to admiral and let Enterprise D be his flag

Perhaps in Janeway's case, she wanted to follow in her father's footsteps. As we discovered in VOY ep Coda, he was a Starfleet vice admiral. -- RR

 

[bintak]

Re: Why not promote Picard to admiral and let Enterprise D be his flag

Bintak-

Are you a TNG fan? If not why don't you share your opinions in another lounge? Your not going to find many that accept your beliefs over here. It's a waste of time, IMHO.

There are good things in ST/TNG (Q being one of them and Denise Crosby being another and surprisingly Brent Spiner's Data being a third I liked) but you are right, it is my least favorite of Trek series for such gross defects as Patrick Stewart, its story pomposity, and the silliness in its overall "Trek" concept.

I'm not the only one in here who looks upon TNG with less than pure joy. Unless there is a rule that says you can eject me for having a valid and quite defensible opinion that TNG isn't as good as some claim it is?

 

[USS KG5]

Re: Why not promote Picard to admiral and let Enterprise D be his flag

Fraid not, Red Ranger. The very Q example you cite is the evidence. Retcon or not, by the time Picard says "We don't nee3d your help!" it conclusively proves that he is an arrogant fool. Miscalculation and mistake I can accept from most anyone. It happens. Personal character flaw arrogantly expressed in the face of direct evidence of as superior godlike being is STUPID.

The whole episode however is about Picard coming to realise he is complacent and asking Q for help. remember this is the first time Q has been sympathetic to Picard, and Picard could not afford to let Q think he was right in saying humanity was a "child race".

Picard had reason for confidence as well - apart from the bush fires with the Cardassians Starfleet seems to have pacified all its local enemies by the 24th century and be technologically on a par with or superior to, well, virtually everyone.

Q said to Picard "hang on chum" and showed him what was coming - it was not just about Picard but Starfleet as a whole.

Picard committed the worst sin in my book, that a commander can commit. he was stupid: not once but many times.

He makes mistakes, but I cannot recall any occasion when he was indisputedly stupid.

Real world example - Halsey at Leyte Gulf who fell into a Japanese trap and left the landing force unprotected only avoiding a disaster through sheer luck.

Does that make Halsey stupid or his opponents smart? Is it not possible to beat someone without them being stupid?

Tasha Yar was lost due to criminal stupidity. For that I blame Riker, the dufus, for failing to run a scan on the creature and engage it in talk. he should have spoken first, not Yar. Leaders lead, not stand around and look stupidly on as events cascade around them.

She died because she was out in the open when oil-boy took a shot at her. Thousands of soldiers through history have died the same way.

Picard? Oh well, somebody died when I sent them into Cardassian space on a suiciode mission. Hohum.

You mean the bajoran lass - Sito Jaxa was it?? She was sent on a very dangerous mission and was killed, that can happen when you are in the military.

It was NOT a suicide mission. She had a way out that did not work. Any of the veterans who post here will tell you that being ordered to your death is a potential consequence of putting on a uniform.

Sisko got thousands of men killed in battle in DS9, he sent a whole fleet into a trap with the hope that a few Galaxy class ships on his flank would stop a massacre, pretty risky dont you think?

 

[Timo]

Re: Why not promote Picard to admiral and let Enterprise D be his flag

All the Trek skippers are obligated to make mistakes that jeopardize the lives of people, sometimes billions of people, in the name of drama. All the Trek skippers gladly comply with these rules. It just so happens that Kirk was the least empowered of the lot to really do much damage there, mainly because his usual foils were wimps; this makes the other skippers look bad in comparison.

Picard could swing the fate of billions by interacting with Q and the Borg. Janeway had the same opportunities, although contrary to Picard, her emphasis was on the Borg. Sisko had the Dominion for an opponent he could whip up to suitable rage. But what did Kirk have? His most powerful conventional opponents, the Klingons, were an honorable and polite kind of villain, easily dissuaded from doing galactic-level harm. The gods he angered were severely lacking in scope, satisfied with tormenting Kirk alone, or at most Kirk and his crew. The natural phenomena he defied either did not devastate planets - or, if they did, were defeated by somebody else than Kirk (say, the DDM by Decker's wits, the Space Amoeba and the TAS cloud thing by Spock's). Archer would probably have done even worse, but temporal-interdimensional intrigue provided him with at least moderately serious opponents for the third season.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mirror_Barclay]

Re: Why not promote Picard to admiral and let Enterprise D be his flag

To skip past the discussion of Picard's qualities...

They didn't make it a fleet, because dramatically it works best to have all the main characters interacting in the same room together, not via teleconference.

I think most of the other problems could be circumvented (e.g. in a small squadron, only the Galaxy-class flagship might have the facilities for medical research, while the other vessels offered only emergency room services). But that problem couldn't be overcome.

Otherwise, a small squadron on an exploration mission, or particularly in wartime, would make sense. "Yesterday's Enterprise," for example, especially with Starfleet having suffered heavy casualties, should have had Picard as an admiral, Riker a Captain, Data a Commander but with his own vessel, etc.

 

[HRHTheKING]

Re: Why not promote Picard to admiral and let Enterprise D be his flag

Why couldn't they promote Picard and let him keep E-D as flag?

Because the Enterprise D and E contain a small fleet in themselves.

It's a multi-role vessel.

 

[Space Lizard]

Re: Why not promote Picard to admiral and let Enterprise D be his flag

I've never wondered why Picard wasn't made an admiral. Think about it from the perspective of a admiral. Great captain, but...they'd probably still blame him for/be angry about the fact that he was responsible for the loss of 39 ships and a unknown amount of lives at Wolf 359. Heck, that's why they didn't want him take part in the battle in First Contact. They still considered him a liability due to his time as a Borg and what happened at 359.

Plus, the Ent-D was destroyed. :P

 

[Tomalak]

Re: Why not promote Picard to admiral and let Enterprise D be his flag

Why would you make him an Admiral? They are always portrayed on Star Trek either as buffoons or traitors. Kirk didn't like being one, and he was rightfully restored to Captain Kirk, so why make the mistake with Picard? If you just leave him on the ship going on as normal, it's a pointless piece of window dressing. That's basically the reason Sisko wasn't promoted in the war episodes on DS9.