Current Events > Rewatching Star Trek the Nepotism displayed is irritating *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

People make fun of the captain and all the senior officers going on away missions but they seem to ignore that both Kirk and Picard hand the captain's seat to their friends rather than competent officers.

To Voyager's credit it's literally part of the plot that Harry Kim has career ambiitions and so volunteers to be the acting captain of the ship during night shifts.

But in Star Trek they always go "Oh me and Spock will be busy so Scotty, you take over." and it's like "You what?" Scotty is a engineer, he never went to the academy. He doesn't know military stratergy or have decades of ship leading experience, he knows how to fix engines. Hes just Kirk's mate. Hell Sulu would be a better acting Captain than Scotty.

And in TNG it's even worse. Why the fuck was Crusher given command of the enterprise? She's a doctor. At least Scotty knows how the fucking computer works. Liking Picard's dick doesn't make you a competent ship Captain.

Christ that episode was all about a borg risk. Imagine if the Borg attacked and fucking Crusher was in charge?

It just feels like the command structure of the Enterprise is: Captain > 2nd Officer > My friends > Everyone else > Spot > Wesley

Do they really think we're so stupid that they just got an extra to be like "I'm acting Captain Commander James Jordan, raise shields go to yellow alert!" we'd be pissed because he's not a regular? Because we wouldn't.

If I was serving on a ship for like 7 years and then found I was serving under the fucking Doctor with no command experience in the highest of high risk scenarios I would be pissed off.

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Scotty was a Lieutenant Commander.

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Kirk knew that Scotty was a capable command officer.
Kirk even noted him to commendation for his outstanding command performance without disobeying the Prime Directive and saving the landing party on planet 892-IV.

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Doctors in the military hold military rank.

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ScazarMeltex posted...

Doctors in the military hold military rank.

You can typically enter as a captain in the US armed forces unless you refuse to go quietly and they have to draft you.

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Guns_of_Verdun posted...

It just feels like the command structure of the Enterprise is: Captain > 2nd Officer > My friends > Everyone else > Spot > Wesley

Picard should definitely have given Spot a chance.

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Every Captain has their own command staff. Which happens to be the more main characters.

It was be weird and boring to have random person take the chair. We dont know anything about them.

If anything if a random person were given it I would think its a plot point for the episode and that they will die by the end of it.

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Just because you're an engineer or doctor doesn't make you incapable of command in the Star Trek universe.

Like, I'm pretty sure that Picards main area of expertise is fucking archeology or something.

It's more about leadership and decision making skills than your main job.

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Yeah, it's not nepotism so much. It's that the captain's friends are typically the senior staff on the ship.

Also Beverly did command the ship when it was being attacked by a Borg Cube.

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TC is so confused it's scary.

The captains always give over command to someone on the senior crew. Scotty, for example, was senior crew, and had the rank of Lt Commander. Various other people were senior crew, and tended to be Lt Commander in rank...or above.

The only thing that is slightly weird, is when someone who IS senior crew, but ISN'T a bridge officer, takes command. Having said that, when Troi took command, it was only because she happened to be on the bridge, and the whole thing showed how clueless she was.

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Scotty is legit. Dude will fist fight you if you even just insult his ship.

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Its almost as if Star Trek is a tv show and not real life.

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ClunkerSlim posted...

And a full Captain when he retired.

Scotty never retired officially. He was declared dead after a bizarre transporter malfunction only to beam aboard the NCC-1701-D suddenly hundreds of years later and everyone was like "bro what the fuck"

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Firewerx posted...

Picard should definitely have given Spot a chance.

https://i.imgur.com/vi5eO6q.png
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Crusher had the rank of Commander

Star Trek: The Nepotism Displayed

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Anyway. This gets explained later. There's a special Bridge Officer test. Anyone who can pass it is theoretically fit to hold the captains chair while he's on an away mission.

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I want to believe that the reasons for the nepotism is that it's just a small cast list. Side characters were barely developed, and it was just the small cast that did everything.

The ships are supposed to run 24/7, and you'd need at least 3 different sets of crews for every section of the ship, including the bridge. Maybe 4.

benjjjamin posted...

You can typically enter as a captain in the US armed forces unless you refuse to go quietly and they have to draft you.

I knew someone on this site who entered as an Admiral and left banned >_> sorry I couldn't resistib4 "hurr durr rent free"

But I never really knew the backgrounds of the characters enough to notice this. I only just dabbled and watched whatever random episodes played late at night.
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User Since: May 2017
Karma: 192

Yeah, this is just really awful bait. He's not going to be coming back guys.

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Perhaps if you actually watched the series, you'd know the difference between bridge officers and all other officers is being able to prove that they can make the difficult decisions to protect the ship and everyone else on it (as seen in TNG S7E16 "To Thine Own Self" where Troi wrestled with her personal code of ethics which caused her to repeatedly fail the test).
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ClunkerSlim posted...

You ever see MASH? All the Doctors have ranks as Captain. Of course, army captains are pretty low rank compared to a naval captain.

I want to say that's how Troi got her rank despite having zero command experience.

I do remember that the chief medical officer is the only one on board that's allowed to overrule the captain in certain situations.

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I do remember when Troi was in command (Ep:Disasters)

But i don't remember Crusher being in command. Although its been some years since i watched ST TNG

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Crusher takes command in the two-parter where Lore is teaming up with the independent Borg drones. Picard leaves a skeleton crew on the Enterprise to establish a base on the planet the Borg are suspected to be on.

I think they show her taking a night shift every now and again too. I believe in the episode where Troi is practicing for her command test.

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I feel like I remember early episodes where Picard gets pissy if crusher even goes on the bridge

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I think that was just because Wesley was usually around.

He was also a little nervous about people finding out he banged her and fathered that failure of a son.

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ClunkerSlim posted...

I thought it was a pretty good thread.

Oh, no doubt. I'm just saying, directing anything at the TC is a waste of time.

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ultimate reaver posted...

I feel like I remember early episodes where Picard gets pissy if crusher even goes on the bridge

Yeah he was like "WTF are you doing out of Sickbay?"

To be fair what WAS McCoy doing on the bridge all that time in TOS?

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Guns_of_Verdun posted...

Yeah he was like "WTF are you doing out of Sickbay?"

To be fair what WAS McCoy doing on the bridge all that time in TOS?

I remember some fluff about him being a hot-shot biologist, but we all know he was just hanging with his bros.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Scotty never retired officially. He was declared dead after a bizarre transporter malfunction only to beam aboard the NCC-1701-D suddenly hundreds of years later and everyone was like "bro what the fuck"

Star Trek VI and the start of Generations takes place 76 years before he was saved by Enterprise-D.

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Foppe posted...

Star Trek VI and the start of Generations takes place 76 years before he was saved by Enterprise-D.

Right I thought it was longer than that for some reason.

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Foppe posted...

Star Trek VI and the start of Generations takes place 76 years before he was saved by Enterprise-D.

I mean McCoy turns up in TNG

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Guns_of_Verdun posted...

I mean McCoy turns up in TNG

137 years old.
That said, we had Spock as well.

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