XPost: rec.arts.sf.tv, rec.arts.startrek.current   
   From: dtravel@sonic.net   
      
   Joe Pfeiffer wrote:   
   > Dimensional Traveler  writes:   
   >> You know, one of the differences in feel between TOS and both TNG and   
   >> the 2009 re-boot is in how they address discipline and chain of   
   >> command. TOS was written by people who had some idea of what the   
   >> military was really like, many of them having served themselves.  Yes,   
   >> they bend things a bit for story purposes and the limits of filming a   
   >> TV show, but their starting point was a working military.  Characters   
   >> stay at their posts.  Kirk didn't tell his subordinates how to do a   
   >> task, he just said "do it".  Every time he sits down there's a yeoman   
   >> handing him a report to read and sign.  How often did we see Picard   
   >> doing paperwork?   
   >>   
   >> With the re-boot movie they display a level of military discipline   
   >> that Somali pirates would laugh at.  Civilian cargo and fishing   
   >> vessels have better discipline than the 2009 version Starfleet!  In   
   >> the middle of an action while at General Quarters a bridge officer   
   >> leaves his post, without even telling anyone let alone asking   
   >> permission or arranging a replacement, to go interfere with a superior   
   >> officer doing their job in a different part of the ship!  (Literally   
   >> running thru the ship yelling "I can do that!"?!?!?!)  One of the   
   >> duties of an executive officer is to play Devil's Advocate for his CO,   
   >> presenting alternatives and pointing out potential problems with the   
   >> CO's plans.  Its both to help his own training and to serve as a   
   >> necessary sounding board for his CO.  In the re-boot, when Spock is in   
   >> command his reaction to his exec (Kirk) disagreeing is to literally   
   >> throw him off the ship!  And do you really want me to go in to the   
   >> whole idea of a cadet who hasn't even graduated being given command of   
   >> a major ship ahead of literally thousands of more senior, more   
   >> experienced officers?  All of which would be horrid whether it was a   
   >> Trek movie or some new setting.   
   >   
   > The only one of these complaints I'd quibble with even slightly is   
   > Kirk's conduct as XO -- he pushed his disagreement to the point of   
   > insubordination.  But Spock's reaction was, as you say, ridiculous.   
      
   He was an academy cadet who shouldn't have been XO in the first place,   
   but what you say is true nonetheless.   
      
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