I’m with you. At first, I picked the Matrix but the more I thot about it the Grid is a better existence. In the Matrix, you are plugged in. With the Grid, you enter with your physical body after it is digitally converted. I don’t like the idea of my body in one place and my mind in another.
Kirk. Next.
Alright. Alright. The geek part of me will expound.
Mal and Han are Captain’s of a small amount of resources. Most of what they do is hands-on. They are both smugglers and rebels. They are survivors and will do anything to make sure that their own interests (which does included their crew) are safe. Most of the time they are on the run or facing superior forces.
Captian Kirk runs a starship with over 400 crewmembers, several departments, and diverse mission protocols (exploration, diplomatic, rescue operation). The USS Enterprise would not have to run when facing a Star Destroyer or Alliance / Reavers / Whutever.
This choice is simply a better career move and by career move I mean remaining alive.
I don’t really have a problem with the Bounty Hunter community. They are who they are, cut-throats and what not. But at least they stay true to who they are. You have to admire that.
That being said, I would choose the Rebels for similar reasons you mentioned. As a rebel, I am fighting the good fight. The fight has worth beyond monetary gain. As a bounty hunter, you play both sides and I don’t feel comfortable with that. To Sean’s comment that as a bounty hunter you choose the jobs, most paying jobs are going to be killing rebels. So, you’ve picked a side.
That’s as far as I’ve gotten in the 'cast. I’ll have to comment on the rest later.
I haven’t read enough EU stuff to think of non-scummy bounty hunters. Boba Fett, the elite, works for Jabba. The rest seem to work for Jabba or the Empire or both. They all seem to be scum, though I’m sure somone more knowledgeable than me could point to one or two that aren’t. The rebels may be “illegal” and have their own interior political issues, but for the most part they are decent folk. I’d rather hang out with them.
This bounty hunter talk did make me think of:
“He was a stormtrooper and good at his job. But he committed the ultimate sin and testified against other stormtroopers gone bad, troopers that tried to kill him but got the woman he loved instead. Now, framed for murder, he prowls the Outer Rim … an outlaw hunting outlaws … a bounty hunter … a Renegade!” cue music
In 1 BBY a crack Mandalorian was sent to prison by a military court for a crime he didn’t commit. This man prompty escaped from a maximum security Sarlacc to the galactic underground. Still wanted by the Empire, he serves as a bounty hunter. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and you can find him, maybe you can hire…"
I don’t know but I feel all grubby and icky after listening to this weeks episode with scifi porn, golden show err ladders and untold conception stories, my poor innocent soul would be forever tarnished if it wasn’t for all the TOS porn parodies I’ve seen over the years:p
Is it the mark of a movie or tv show that a certain level of success is required before a XXX parody is made and would you want your favourite show to be exploited in this way?
Tangled was good fun and as already mentioned not a Pixar movie and you can tell, no matter how good Disney are or SONY’s animation arm there is something about a Pixar movie. I also expect to see some shorts or even a spin off with the adventures of Maximus, that was one hell of a character and a character development arc to boot:)
I also originally thought the number of chairs on the bridge were ridiculous when TNG first aired in 1987. However, as both my actual military experience increased and the amount of general scifi consumed increased I became more and more confortable in it. For instance, look in the Honorverse and bridge operations there. There are numerous symbiotic issues being handled simultaneously, especially on the fleet staff of larger vessels and the “Enterpris Double D” as Chuck called her, is a large fleet command vessel. The crews are not just slapped together as in a smaller Constitution-sized vessel, rather they train for months or years before deemed “operational ready.”
In the Navy, or Starfleet I presume, having the Commanding officer of a ship carries alot of meaning to it. In essence, it means the ship is ready for anything in its operational parameters. To put it in terms of a flying unit, the proficiency and readiness of the units in “12 O’Clock High” or “A Gethering of Eagles” take issue with a unit clearly unable to perform it’s mission and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up to pass inspections and perform missions. Naval aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines train for 6-18 months before deplying even today.
I realize this is not how Enterprise’s crew was assembled (picking up the final crew at Farpoint), but I would assume Picard would have drilled the snot out of them to get them working together like a true team until he attained perfection. Also, Picard was very selective in his crew. He took the best of the best. So they would have figured out how to interoperate rapidly.
Two more things. 1) Each department “head” was indivudally responsible to anything under their ‘command.’ This is particularly exemplified in Weber’s Honorverse books. And 2) Picard, Riker and even Jellico to a ceratain degree expected options and opinions. The bridge lay-out encouraged such interaction. In the end, though, the Captain was still in charge.
So in short, the number of chairs on the bridge in Star Trek: The Next Genreation represent command efficiency and unity, not agreement by commitee. At least that’s how I’ve grown to see it.
Here are a couple things I thought up when figuring out command center/bridge design for ships in my own universe.
In a battle situation when the captain is around, does the first officer actually have a specific task? In my ships, I have the first officer direct damage control efforts.
Considering that the captain and first officer sit right next to each other, it’s more likely that battle damage could injure/kill both at the same time. It might make more sense to have the captain in the center and the first officer somewhere further off to one side (or in auxillairy control, but I didn’t go that far).
Renegade is my perfect example of a guilty pleasure. It was such a cheesy show, but for some reason I loved it. A month or so ago, I was picking up a new TV at Best Buy and saw the Renegade DVD box set. $30 for all 5 seasons? Hell yeah I bought it.
I’ve edited the spelling error. You know, this may be dragging up old dirt needlessly, but other than not being sensitive to his crew’s needs I don’t find too many faults with Captain Jellico’s command ability. Call me an outlier I guess.
Jellico’s idea of command appeared to me to be simply issuing orders. Sure, issuing orders is a part of command, and following them is a part of the command structure–something that the crew of the Enterprise does a pretty good job with. But though that seems to be the limit of Jellico’s functionality, it’s not the only part of successful command.
Jellico is a micromanager. He treats his crew like chair warmers–like functionaries whose job is simply to operate equipment that can’t be fully automated. In a good command structure, I’d expect to find leadership and decision-making at each level, or certainly at many of the top levels. Rather than focusing on what shift schedule people should be working, he can delegate that to his other highly-trained command staff, leaving his time free to make larger, more important decisions. Micromanaging leaders limit their overall decision-making ability by not employing their commanders as commanders. Those who build and work with a team discover more options, make better decisions, and ultimately do a much better job for themselves and their crews.
And if there’s a significant decision that requires that he make such smaller decisions (which would normally fall to others), he can pass that information on as well. I’m not suggesting that he needs to reveal his reasoning. But he does need to at least indicate that he has additional reason to do what he’s doing besides simply “do what I say.” From a practical perspective, he needed the assistance of his upper command structure to complete his secret mission. By deciding–or by having the decision forced on him from above, either way–to exclude them, he put the mission in jeopardy.
I’ve met so many people who think that leadership is just about issuing/obeying orders, and it’s truly frustrating. If such was the case, why would we ever recognize some individuals as outstanding leaders? Wouldn’t all leaders be equal in that once they’re handed the authority, they can issue orders? Clearly there’s more to the process, and that’s why we never hear of Jellico again. He’s not a great leader. He’s low to average.
Not too much of an outlier, cause I’m there with you. This was one of the points that I completely disagreed with the 'cast about. My brother who is in the Air Force and another friend who served in the Army both loved Jellico. I did, too.
I thought Jellico was awesome and reminded everyone that Starfleet was actually a military organization. Was he a hardcase? Sure. He just represented a different command style and rubbed the Barney-esque Enterprise crew the wrong way. I can never bring myself to dislike a man who put Troi in uniform and promoted Data to his first officer. If anything, Riker acted like a petulant child in that episode and it lessened my respect for his character. Unlike many other guest captains in the ST universe, Jellico actually got the job done. He stopped a war from breaking out and rescued Picard. When forced to bend to get the job done (aka appease the bratty Riker so he’d do his damn job), he bent. In the end, Jellico even left with class. “It’s been an honor serving with you.” The fact that he was played by Ronny Cox just made him even cooler.
I will second what Chuck said. It doesn’t matter how “in charge” you are, if your people don’t respect you and/or don’t go further than “ordered” then you will never be considered a great leader because they don’t strive to make things better. They remain in 3rd gear waiting to hang you out.
I actually kind of liked Jellico. He was exactly the kind of captain that they needed in that situation. And he managed to get Deanna to wear a uniform instead of whatever she felt like.
agreed - I believe Riker also said he doesnt “provide an atmosphere of trust, and you don’t inspire people to go out of their way for you”. If you don’t respect or trust someone, you won’t want to follow them, regardless of if the orders are right or wrong.
I always thought of Troi as the equivalent of a high school football coach who’s also the art teacher. They needed a telepath, but you can’t have a telepath just for a telepath’s sake, so they found an actual job for her.
Counselor was her art class. Telepath was football.
If someone can post a summary of the “What ifs?” I will make surveys for each of them…perhaps even a new forum for this type of debate? Akin to geek deathmatch but with more of a creative twist.
I’ll have to say I completely didn’t expect this level of discussion. After all, Jellico was a minor point to what I thought was my main point. The main point was concerning the topic that came up in the cast about the number of chairs on the Enterprise-D command deck/bridge. However, it seemed the point you were making regarding Jellico went counter to what I remembered watching on TV. So when I came home tonight I broke open my Star Trek The Next Generation season 6 DVD set and watched the two episodes.
First off, I understand that you four gentlemen are of the more creative backgrounds while I generally come from structured and military backgrounds. And that’s one thing I love about GWC - the open creativeness and expressionism. So I can immediately see how we view the events differently. Please keep that in mind while listening to my point of view.
Was Jellico perfect? Frak no. He failed to connect with his crew, inspire them or even personally assert himself into the morale issue. He even asked Troi to “handle” it for him since she obviously put in a lot of thought to the issue. He was also a total dick to Picard in the ready room and was out of line when he verbally assaulted Riker in Riker’s own cabin. True, Riker did respond in kind, but in this instance Jellico shot first. He also didn’t bother to find out from his department heads why they wouldn’t change to a 4 shift rotation. In my mind the only reason he was non-flexible about the shift rotation was to assert command presence rather than be plowed over the first day of the job, but I wouldn’t have fallen over my sword about it. So was he a great leader or Starfleet Captain? No. But it is not all one sided.
Did Jellico micromanage? No. It may seem that way, but in rewatching the two part Change of Command episode it was crystal clear to me that he was getting the ship in the utmost combat condition it could possibly be. He needed everything the ship had if it was to fight the vastly numerical superior Cardassian fleet, so taking the science labs off-line was reasonable, as was improving the performance of the engines and re-assigning bridge stations to damage control. The Enterprise was preparing for an immediate high-stress combat environment. Jellico was pretty straight forward with the crew about why the radical changes were being made, too, once Picard’s shuttle departed.
And remember, while not optimal, Jellico did accomplish the mission. He successfully averted a combat engagement with the Cardassians and he was able to retrieve Picard in a diplomatic adverse situation.
So here’s my other thought. The Enterprise crew didn’t help themselves at all. A version of leadership is leading from a subordinate position. I’m not talking about mutiny here, rather I’m pointing to an ability for a subordinate to facilitate the leadership process. And for being such a top of the line crew, the Enterprise officers fall far short in this regard. They see Jellico’s demands as unreasonable and unnecessary. Riker even has a little tantrum in the conference room when he is relieved. What good does that do the crew if he is relieved? He can no longer effect the process or contribute. The crew did nothing to collectively or singularly inspire an environment of trust or respect.
>>JUST TO HIGHLIGHT, THE CREW ALSO BORE RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOME FAILURES<<
And remember the BIGGEST dick in these two episodes. Vice Admiral Alynna Nechayev. She is the one who put Jellico in command knowing what his command style was. She was the one who orchestrated the events Jellico had to carry out and she was the one who threw the Enterprise into the mix without fleet backup. In the end I have to blame her the most for Jellico’s personal failures.
I’m not saying I’m right, I’m just saying this is how I’m seeing things.
