hthrflwrs

Heather "hthrflwrs" Flowers

@hthrflwrs

sapient entity

i make video games and good posts

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hthrflwrs
@hthrflwrs
Lizstar
@Lizstar
hthrflwrs
@hthrflwrs

Thinking of episodes of Star Trek where the only captain who could have made it through was the captain who was there. Examples:

  • Kirk: Balance of Terror. It's not just that he's a great tactician, it's that he's perfectly matched to the Romulan captain.
  • Janeway: The Void. This is Voyager in a nutshell and Janeway at her best; no other captain could have forged the alliances she did in the way she did.
  • Sisko: The Siege of AR-558. There's being a masterful tactician, and there's holding the line when you know there's nothing else to be done. Sisko does both in a way nobody else could have done.

What are your favorite examples of this?

gotyaoi
@gotyaoi

I was going to say The Drumhead, but I give Sisko a fair shake there. So instead, I'll say Chain Of Command Part 2. Make of that what you will.

Lizstar
@Lizstar

Picard: Darmok. Picard's skillset of archaeology, diplomacy, and sociology helped make him the PERFECT person to communicate with this completely alien form of communication.

Sisko: Past Tense, Part 2. Literally no other captain would take hostages and become that character in that situation. Picard would have buckled under the weight. I don't think ANY other character in Trek might have been able to pull that off the way Sisko did.

And now, my favorite captain, Pike.

Pike: The Serene Squall. Mother fucker's ship gets taken over and he's captured by pirates, on this infamous dangerous pirate ship. What does he do? Cook them actual food, and slowly worm his way into them so that they mutiny. And it works. and it's shown they've done this before, because he has a code word for this maneuver.

Also Pike: Hegemony. There's a planet overrun by Zerg. The captain of Starfleet's highest profile ship goes down, HIMSELF, to help take care of it.

Also also Pike: Memento Mori. That entire submarine section. I think Sisko could maybe have pulled this off, but it's not a guarantee. Also it has this amazing conversation which really shows how Pike works in a situation like this:

Spock: If we leave the brown dwarf, they will see us. If we go deeper, it could destroy the ship.
Pike: Good thinking, Mr. Spock. We need to go deeper into the brown dwarf.
Spock: That is not what I suggested.

There's also a lot of tiny moments, not full major parts of episodes. He's just a father to his crew, and none of the other captains REALLY fit that to a T like Pike does.

hthrflwrs
@hthrflwrs

Interesting pulls! You're right about Picard in Darmok for sure. I definitely think that only Pike could've gotten through The Serene Squall, though I definitely think that Sisko could have pulled off Memento Mori -- he has a very similar submarine-style episode with Starship Down where the Defiant is trapped in a gas giant, and manages to pull through (albeit barely)

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melinoe
@melinoe

Goodness and Kirk being the right choice literally is concepted into that entire SNW episode. Goodness they should make that revitalised balance of terror theme the romulan imperial anthem, it's so damn good.

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melinoe
@melinoe

Ohh, I'd be curious to hear if you've got the energy and it's not too bad a tangent.

Generally I've really loved it, weirdly feeling very bold and creative despite being trapped in a prequel box and do think its first episode is a really nice intro to trek now it's so old and messy.

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hthrflwrs
@hthrflwrs

so SNW has that writing quirk which extremely irks me, which i've come to call the "Marvel flinch" -- whenever something emotionally heavy happens, the show undercuts it with banter as soon as possible, so the viewer doesn't feel bad for having feelings. the worst example of this is in Ad Astra Per Aspera, where when Una gets back to the ship, there's a moment of her looking at the crew before saying "Well If You're All Here, Who's Flying The Ship?" which 1) is a bizarre outdated reference, 2) undercuts the real emotional stakes of the moment, and 3) makes zero logical sense for the show. it's not that comedy is bad in heavy episodes -- DS9 knows how to combine the two beautifully, as does Lower Decks -- but comedy needs to be grounded in the reality of the story and treat it with respect.

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ertchin
@ertchin

This may be cheating a little, since it was sort of the theme of the episode, but Riker in "Best of Both Worlds Part 2". Not only does he have to "break the rules" with his new plan, he has to do it in a way he knows Picard wouldn't anticipate.

I think most other Trek captains would've tried capturing and/or strangling one of the experimenters in "Scientific Method", but only Janeway would've made them leave by flying the ship into a death trap. (While I didn't love the writers writing Janeway like this some times, I thought it was perfect for this situation.)

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Queso2469
@Queso2469

More thematically than narratively but just all the crap they put Archer through in season 3 of Enterprise. Trek sometimes lets us see the outcomes of "good people forced into abandoning their morals" but it very rarely lets us see it happen with main characters. Meanwhile Archer has to do piracy and murder or it might be the end of humanity. I think most of the rest of the captains are too deep into federation moral purity for that to be an interesting character arc with meaningful consequences.

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Xuelder
@Xuelder

I think it Ironic that Federation Moral Purity is basically built on a foundation of Archer's lifelong distrust of the Vulcan's holding them back in humanity's Warp Program. Pretty much any episode that deals with the Vulcan/Andorian conflict (also the events of Babel One and the Tellerites) could have been only handled by Archer.

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jcolag
@jcolag

I mean...I kind of question the premise, because the nature of these (pardon the pun) enterprises makes these plots work even when someone useless happens to be in charge. However, if we step back to an episode's core concept and treat that as inviolable, I'll bite and say that A Taste of Armageddon feels like the purest form of this idea, to me.

All right. It's instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes. Knowing that we won't kill today. Contact Vendikar. I think you'll find that they're just as terrified, appalled, horrified as you are, that they'll do anything to avoid the alternative I've given you. Peace or utter destruction. It's up to you.

I'd argue that, by the nature of the evolving franchise, Kirk is the only captain allowed to admit that peace is a commitment to repeatedly making the right choice. Anybody else, even Sisko unless the episode is part of a longer arc about making lasting peace, would instead approach this like admonishing a child for their immaturity. They all think that war is a betrayal of their ideals - except when they engage in it, at which point it's righteous and necessary - rather than what makes the ideals valuable.

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in reply to @hthrflwrs's post:

Lizstar
@Lizstar

Yeah that was the one I was most shaky on. I actually haven't gotten to that episode yet, I'm only in season 3 of DS9 =w= OH SHIT I JUST REMEMBERED A SISKO MOMENT THAT'S ONLY SISKO time to go edit the post

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