Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Watching the episode 'Valiant', where Jake and Nog wind up on a cadet crewed ship, same class as Defiant.

As is revealed, the crew are all cadets, their 'captain' having been given a battlefield commission by the previous, dying captain.

But what I don't get....Nog is surely still the ranking Officer, being an Ensign - so surely he could take command over the battlefield commissioned Captain?

That's probably technically correct. But it's obvious the insane hold the acting captain has over his crew and it's extremely doubtful that Nog would have been able to get anyone to acknowledge his takeover.

How was there only 1 ranking officer on a federation ship, even if it is just running maneuvers with cadets? Seems silly, like a plot hole or something!

 kronk wrote:
How was there only 1 ranking officer on a federation ship, even if it is just running maneuvers with cadets? Seems silly, like a plot hole or something!

A plot hole in a TV show? how dare they

I like the ones with Odo and Quark.

 kronk wrote:
How was there only 1 ranking officer on a federation ship, even if it is just running maneuvers with cadets? Seems silly, like a plot hole or something!

Was a cadet training mission, so crew 90% cadets. All commanding officers snuff it during a battle. Jake and Nog are beamed aboard after.

If I was Nog, I'd be straight on the 'I outrank you all - back to the nearest starbase, because I say so'

 kronk wrote:
How was there only 1 ranking officer on a federation ship, even if it is just running maneuvers with cadets? Seems silly, like a plot hole or something!

Well, you are talking about the franchise where standard procedure when encountering a hostile situation is to beam in the entire senior command staff of a naval vessel escorted by only one marine...

I liked the ST:TNG with Q, best. He was a dick, but a funny dick.

 brushcommando wrote:

 kronk wrote:
How was there only 1 ranking officer on a federation ship, even if it is just running maneuvers with cadets? Seems silly, like a plot hole or something!

Well, you are talking about the franchise where standard procedure when encountering a hostile situation is to beam in the entire senior command staff of a naval vessel escorted by only one marine...

What could go wrong?

 brushcommando wrote:

 kronk wrote:
How was there only 1 ranking officer on a federation ship, even if it is just running maneuvers with cadets? Seems silly, like a plot hole or something!

Well, you are talking about the franchise where standard procedure when encountering a hostile situation is to beam in the entire senior command staff of a naval vessel escorted by only one sacrificial prawn

FTFY.

 Frazzled wrote:

 brushcommando wrote:

 kronk wrote:
How was there only 1 ranking officer on a federation ship, even if it is just running maneuvers with cadets? Seems silly, like a plot hole or something!

Well, you are talking about the franchise where standard procedure when encountering a hostile situation is to beam in the entire senior command staff of a naval vessel escorted by only one marine...

What could go wrong?

Given the advanced technology that went into their plot armor, nothing. Principal cast members simply could not be killed or mortally injured unless their contract was up and they weren't interested in coming back next season. That's the main reason why the Borg lost.

Star Trek was written by hippies with zero knowledge of actual military procedures or common sense. You just have to learn to make fun of Starfleet's incompetence.

My assumption is that the fact that it was a battlefield commission, he outranked Nog whilst in a combat environment (I would assume being behind enemy lines would qualify). In theory it would create a clear chain of command, especially if under fire. That being said, Nog was also freshly out of the academy (the fact that he became an ensign whilst red squad were all still cadets makes me think his could also have been a battlefield/wartime commission), which means he wouldn't have the confidence to take charge, especially when we are talking about academy 'hero's'

 kronk wrote:
I liked the ST:TNG with Q, best. He was a dick, but a funny dick.

my girlfriend says I have one of those.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Star Trek was written by hippies with zero knowledge of actual military procedures or common sense. You just have to learn to make fun of Starfleet's incompetence.

Balance of Terror was pretty good and arguably the only war episode until DS9.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Star Trek was written by hippies with zero knowledge of actual military procedures or common sense. You just have to learn to make fun of Starfleet's incompetence.

You might say this is part of the point. Starfleet is not a military. At least not in primarily in our traditional sense of the world. It's a more a catch-all organization as dedicated, if not more so to exploration & research as it is defense. It uses a military-inspired hierarchy as an organization structure but that's not a statement of purpose. The Star Trek universe at least as far as earth is concerned is post scarcity, post-conflict society. A place where humanity has long since moved out of the shadows of 3 of the 4 horsemen. Conflict where it happens is the result of external alien forces. It's something of a point that somewhere between ToS & TNG Starfleet fell out of building warships all together. Picard's enterprise was the flagship of the fleet and lots of ordinary civilian families along for the ride simply because having people out there for the exploration was such a core part of the Starfleet mission. That the defiant is basically just a bunch of guns strapped to a warp core & shield generator is a big part of why they make a big deal of it's introduction in DS9.

Now granted the away mission structure is a rather silly artifact of keeping the stars on the screen. However Starfleet's general lack of military rigor is part of the whole concept. The Federation was conceived of and is supposed to be a rather hippy ideal by design, not due to writer oversight or ignorance. Heck that's always been a big part of the appeal. One of the reasons DS9 actually works really well because it's a series about what happens when there are a lot of forces pushing back and making keep those ideals alive a real challenge.

Good point Chongara. Its a weird hybrid.

 supreme overlord wrote:

 kronk wrote:
I liked the ST:TNG with Q, best. He was a dick, but a funny dick.

my girlfriend says I have one of those.

There is only 1 response.