Why was The captain of the ENT-B such a noob?
- Thread starter Infern0
- Start date
hellsgate
Commodore
The guy was a noob, but he had all of a few moments to make a judgement call in the face of a massive temporal energy disruption & a bridge full of Starfleet legends. The Temporal Prime Directive & the proteges of Starfleet Command to protect....how long would it have taken YOU to slam it in reverse? And would it have made a difference? Would it have followed the Enterprise-B to fulfill a celestial-scale destiny? We don't know. It was a MOVIE, Dude. To a point, you're supposed to suspend disbelief.
Must have been surely, it was "the enterprise"
I don't think the original or the A was.
I'm pretty sure that all of the 'Enterprise' Starfleet vessels were flagships in their particular era.
GodThingFormerly
A Different Kind of Asshole
You'd be pretty wrong. This "flagship" rubbish only began with ST:TNG and the NCC-1701-D.
TGT
Well, they cast Alan Ruck for a reason -- they wanted someone with an aura of vulnerability and goofiness to play a newbie captain as a straw man to make Kirk look even better than if he had to deal with an experienced captain. The role in many ways is similar to the roles Ruck played on Ferris Buehler's Day Off and Spin City. Kind of silly, but hey, it was GEN!
As for whether Enterprise-B was the flagship, probably not. I actually like the idea of a Starfleet flagship, started in TNG. But I think that was still a mostly ceremonial title. To digress, the only time we see that Enterprise-D has some kind of official "flagship" role was in Chain of Command, where it's revealed the D would be the command ship for that sector if Minos Korva was attacked by the Cardassians.
Red Ranger
As for whether Enterprise-B was the flagship, probably not. I actually like the idea of a Starfleet flagship, started in TNG. But I think that was still a mostly ceremonial title. To digress, the only time we see that Enterprise-D has some kind of official "flagship" role was in Chain of Command, where it's revealed the D would be the command ship for that sector if Minos Korva was attacked by the Cardassians.
Red Ranger
Umm, or then they cast Ruck because he looked even more handsome and heroic and confidence-inspiring than Shatner in his prime, so that the contrast would be all the greater when the man was emasculated by his shortchanged starship and the overwhelming presence of the mighty Kirk...
Surely Ruck is the sort of material you put in the posters on Starfleet drafting office walls, if you don't want to go through the trouble of photoshopping.
Timo Saloniemi
Surely Ruck is the sort of material you put in the posters on Starfleet drafting office walls, if you don't want to go through the trouble of photoshopping.
Timo Saloniemi
They had refered to it as the flagship well before Chain of Command. In Sarek for example, I believe (I just saw it during that Christmas marathon).
As far as I can tell and prefer to believe until something onscreen actually
contradicts it, the Enterprise has always been the flagship of the fleet.
Anyways, I don't think he was a n00b. I'm sure he had command experience
before this incident. But with an undermanned, unequiped Starship only meant
to be going on a media excursion essentialy... it probably made things tough.
I wish we would have seen more of the ENT-B and Harriman. The roles of
both in the New Era novel they were featured in were awesome.
contradicts it, the Enterprise has always been the flagship of the fleet.
Anyways, I don't think he was a n00b. I'm sure he had command experience
before this incident. But with an undermanned, unequiped Starship only meant
to be going on a media excursion essentialy... it probably made things tough.
I wish we would have seen more of the ENT-B and Harriman. The roles of
both in the New Era novel they were featured in were awesome.
Why choose this starting point? Why not "until something onscreen actually contradicts it, the Enterprise has always been a run-of-the-mill ship"?
Nothing in TOS ever indicated that Kirk's ship would have been "special". ST:TMP gave the ship some special status as a spearhead in a refit project, but ST2 brought her down to earth figuratively by showing a "has-been" training career without a hint of any sort of glorious past status - and ST3 did that a bit more literally.
We saw too little of the A, the B or the C to learn anything about their status. Certainly nothing directly indicated that they would have been the most famous ships of their time, or anything; indeed, the E-B was never heard of again after her maiden voyage.
Timo Saloniemi
I agree that the title of "Flagship of the Federation" that was discussed for the Ent-D must be some sort of honorific, and not something to take literal. An actual flagship has a flag deck - a place where someone in senior command of the whole fleet can make fleet decisions, while the captain of that ship gets on with the business of running that ship. Admittedly, that could probably be done from a few consoles (admirals have advisors and such) on any given bridge above a particular size, but it'd be a little odd to have an admiral standing over at a console like any other crewperson while the command crew of the ship runs her.
Also, a flagship has other ships assigned to her fleet.
When I designed my fanfic Enterprise NCC-170100, she was meant to be a literal flagship, so I layed out my bridge as a two story affair - a lower bridge with a vaulted ceiling that serves as the ship's own bridge, and an upper flag bridge offset aftward with railings and stairs and a turbolift down to the regular bridge. The upper flag bridge contains displays, communications, and other things necessary to run a fleet. The admiral or commodore (which I'm bringin' back, dammit!
) could potentially call out something to the captain from over the railing, but generally would communicate through the fleetwide communications, even then.
Also, a flagship has other ships assigned to her fleet.
When I designed my fanfic Enterprise NCC-170100, she was meant to be a literal flagship, so I layed out my bridge as a two story affair - a lower bridge with a vaulted ceiling that serves as the ship's own bridge, and an upper flag bridge offset aftward with railings and stairs and a turbolift down to the regular bridge. The upper flag bridge contains displays, communications, and other things necessary to run a fleet. The admiral or commodore (which I'm bringin' back, dammit!
) could potentially call out something to the captain from over the railing, but generally would communicate through the fleetwide communications, even then.
Because the Enterprise has never been shown as a run-of-the-mill
ship and I like it as the flagship.
Moving to Trek Movies
John Harriman suffered from what most of the movie-ers captains suffered from and that was being a character made stupid to make Kirk look better. He is cut from the same cloth as Styles and Esteban.
It would have been more interesting had Moore and Braga written him to be a highly-competent captain to highlight the fact that perhaps Kirk's time was at an end. Instead they went for the easy punch with the character.
However, I suggest reading The Captain's Daughter and Serpants Among The Ruins to see Captain Harriman at his best. The former nicely explains why he was the way he was in GEN. In fact, after reading those two TrekLit books, I became fond of Harriman as a captain.
It would have been more interesting had Moore and Braga written him to be a highly-competent captain to highlight the fact that perhaps Kirk's time was at an end. Instead they went for the easy punch with the character.
However, I suggest reading The Captain's Daughter and Serpants Among The Ruins to see Captain Harriman at his best. The former nicely explains why he was the way he was in GEN. In fact, after reading those two TrekLit books, I became fond of Harriman as a captain.
I'd like to think that, the instant Kirk told Harriman to sit in the captain's chair while Kirk went to go save the ship, that was when we see pre-Generations Harriman back to form. There really is nothing more personally inspiring than your hero cheering you on.
