Star Trek The General Star Trek Thread - From TOS to Corporate Schenanigans

[Crom's Black Blade]

"I think it's a waste of effort to test our combat skills. It's a minor province in the make-up of a starship captain."
- William Riker, Peak Performance

It's rather astonishing this guy managed to survive as long as he did with that kind of mentality.

While hardly the best choice of words, it must be remembered the context of them being directed towards an obnoxious outside observer and mediator as well Riker's full objection was a focus on "brawn" over "brains". One does not really need to dig much to see Riker is low-key insulting Kolrami who is desk job strategist with lot of ego but very little in actual experience.

Further Riker survived by being pretty ballsy and resolute. To pick a quote just from the same season:

Kagan: They are in conflict!

Riker: No, sir, they are not! I will obey your orders. I will serve this ship as First Officer, and in an attack against the Enterprise I will die along with this crew. But I will not break my oath of loyalty to Starfleet.
-A Matter of Honor

 

[Sailor.X]

I don't remember Riker being that bullheaded, that mostly seemed to get transferred to Worf whose job it was seemed to be to recommend phasers only to be shut down by Picard. If anything I'd argue Riker was far too mellow and in agreement with Picard for much of the series incontrast to the conflict you'd expect pairing an ambitious "young Kirk" with an older, statesman-like Captain.

It should be noted Worf was right 95% of the time. Kind of why he shined in DS9

 

[Agent23]

"I think it's a waste of effort to test our combat skills. It's a minor province in the make-up of a starship captain."
- William Riker, Peak Performance

It's rather astonishing this guy managed to survive as long as he did with that kind of mentality.

He was supposed to be a "modernized" read pussified and incorrect, Kirk IIRC.

Because Rodenberry wanted to push his leftist bullcrap and thought Kirk was too much of a cowboy or something.

I think that he started going senile around the time TNG was being planned and executed.

 

[Typhonis]

Th thing is the Captain could have tested his crew's combat skills at any time by using this wonderful device they seemed to treat as a toy and relaxation agent...the holodeck.

 

[Sailor.X]

Th thing is the Captain could have tested his crew's combat skills at any time by using this wonderful device they seemed to treat as a toy and relaxation agent...the holodeck.

It took the Borg and the Dominion War to beat the stupid out of the Federation. Getting them to act more like the TOS era Federation.

 

[Typhonis]

You know there IS a way to make the Borg scarier.

The Borg can transport through shields. So....why send Borg when they could send a swarm of assimilation nanoprobes?

 

[bullethead]

Th thing is the Captain could have tested his crew's combat skills at any time by using this wonderful device they seemed to treat as a toy and relaxation agent...the holodeck.

Individuals or small groups, yeah.

Problem is, if you want to test everyone at one time, you need to do a full crew drill.

 

[Crom's Black Blade]

Th thing is the Captain could have tested his crew's combat skills at any time by using this wonderful device they seemed to treat as a toy and relaxation agent...the holodeck.

Well it was established in the pilot they use holographic enemies to train in hand to hand combat while Worf's recreational programs tended to test his combat skills. We've also seen the holodeck used to practice and improving marksmanship.

Further the context was, again, not so much conducting combat training under any circumstances but Picard resisting having an outsider conduct and mediate the wargame in question. And obviously said expert wanted to conduct the scenario in the real world with two ships

 

[Bear Ribs]

I'll note, Worf also thought the wargame in Peak Performance was a waste of time. I'm not sure how much of their distaste was for the idea of a combat test in the first place and how much was because the scenario pitted the Enterprise against an 80-year-old clunker with literally no fuel in its tank and a broken warp drive.

 

[Sailor.X]

Individuals or small groups, yeah.

Problem is, if you want to test everyone at one time, you need to do a full crew drill.

Even the US Navy does not test everyone at one time. It is done by duty section and watch section. Unless you are in a great big Giant ass wargame like Operation Ocean Venture. Which was a multibranch Base invasion Wargame.

 

[Captain X]

"I think it's a waste of effort to test our combat skills. It's a minor province in the make-up of a starship captain."
- William Riker, Peak Performance

It's rather astonishing this guy managed to survive as long as he did with that kind of mentality.

That's TNG in a nutshell, though, really. Roddenberry's insistence that Starfleet wasn't a military, and you still have people saying that to this day in spite of the fact it acts just like one. Because in their minds "military = bad."

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Even if we put aside whether or not Starfleet is a military, they inhabit an adventure setting where ships are getting into violent altercations every week. They are adventurers. They should be ready for combat.

 

[Bassoe]

why send Borg when they could send a swarm of assimilation nanoprobes?

Because the studio special effects budget will stretch to black bodysuits covered in steampunk junk, not CGI grey goo shoggoths.

 

[Crom's Black Blade]

That's TNG in a nutshell, though, really. Roddenberry's insistence that Starfleet wasn't a military, and you still have people saying that to this day in spite of the fact it acts just like one. Because in their minds "military = bad."

To be fair, it has its roots in TOS where Starfleet very much was a peaceful exploratory and scientific agency first and a military agency second. TNG pushed things to a more absurd degree but the duality of idealism and pragmatism was already present from the very start.

 

[S'task]

To be fair, it has its roots in TOS where Starfleet very much was a peaceful exploratory and scientific agency first and a military agency second. TNG pushed things to a more absurd degree but the duality of idealism and pragmatism was already present from the very start.

Ehh... there were quite a few TOS episodes that clearly treated Starfleet as military and the characters themselves saw themselves as potentially military. "Errand of Mercy" and "Balance of Terror" both come to mind and showcased very much that Kirk and Spock both saw themselves as serving in a military to some degree.

Starfleet was originally modeled on the 18th and 19th Century Royal Navy in many respects, both a military force in service to the Empire, but also look at how many scientific and exploration expeditions the Royal Navy undertook in those times as well as police actions and the like. "Horatio Hornblower in Space" was as much as part of Trek's DNA as "Wagon Train to the Stars" was, especially in TOS.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Because the studio special effects budget will stretch to black bodysuits covered in steampunk junk, not CGI grey goo shoggoths.

This is a really important point. A significant chunk of the reason TNG was so pacifistic, and DS9 so relatively bloodthirsty, was budget and technology. At the time TNG aired it was extremely expensive to shoot a starship battle while by the time of DS9 CG had advanced enough to make it affordable. Even though TNG had a large budget for a sci-fi show of its time, the expense of the practical effects for such scenes often curtailed any chance of showing real action.

Speaking of this specific episode:

Snodgrass recalled, "I loved that script. When I came in, I thought it was a wonderful vehicle for Jonathan and I had a lot of fun doing the rewrite. I really enjoyed writing action, but we had a hard time selling it, because it costs a lot of money to have spaceships fight." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 182)

 

[Crom's Black Blade]

Ehh... there were quite a few TOS episodes that clearly treated Starfleet as military and the characters themselves saw themselves as potentially military. "Errand of Mercy" and "Balance of Terror" both come to mind and showcased very much that Kirk and Spock both saw themselves as serving in a military to some degree.

Starfleet was originally modeled on the 18th and 19th Century Royal Navy in many respects, both a military force in service to the Empire, but also look at how many scientific and exploration expeditions the Royal Navy undertook in those times as well as police actions and the like. "Horatio Hornblower in Space" was as much as part of Trek's DNA as "Wagon Train to the Stars" was, especially in TOS.

Yes, I at no point denied Starfleet at times served in the role of a military. But rather that Starfleet, in a Watsonian sense, and the show itself, in a Doylist sense, was always focused on exploration first and was never Starship Troopers. That in many ways TNG was a continuation of the themes created in TOS rather than an abrupt change most in the thread seem to assume it was.

Were things more balanced in TOS? Certainly but I could certainly see Kirk saying a similar line of combat being only a small part of what a Starfleet Captain is.

 

[Agent23]

It took the Borg and the Dominion War to beat the stupid out of the Federation. Getting them to act more like the TOS era Federation.

You mean the era that was known for Redshirts...

You know there IS a way to make the Borg scarier.

The Borg can transport through shields. So....why send Borg when they could send a swarm of assimilation nanoprobes?

And/or a bomb.

Or build something akin to the expocomps that shoots pot darts full of the stuff.

Th thing is the Captain could have tested his crew's combat skills at any time by using this wonderful device they seemed to treat as a toy and relaxation agent...the holodeck.

Or the chief of security can have regular drills with the security staff/away team roster.

This thread is turning into Federation/Trek Ground Forces, do the suck or do they suck balls.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

"I think it's a waste of effort to test our combat skills. It's a minor province in the make-up of a starship captain."
- William Riker, Peak Performance

The Emperor rotting on his Golden Throne literally quivers every now and again on account of Star Fleet’s naivety.

That aside, as someone who has had soldiers in the family (some who served as recently as Iraq and Afghanistan), Roddenberry’s disgust for all things remotely martial rubs me the wrong way.

 

[Jaenera Targaryen]

The Emperor rotting on his Golden Throne literally quivers every now and again on account of Star Fleet’s naivety.

That aside, as someone who has had soldiers in the family (some who served as recently as Iraq and Afghanistan), Roddenberry’s disgust for all things remotely martial rubs me the wrong way.

The worst part is that Rodenberry was a WWII veteran, specifically, as a B-17 pilot. He should and would have known better.

Veteran reunions were probably very awkward.