XPost: rec.arts.sf.tv, rec.arts.startrek.current   
   From: dtravel@sonic.net   
      
   Joseph Nebus wrote:   
   > Dimensional Traveler  writes:   
   >   
   >>  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.   
   >   
   > 	I put to you a hypothetical: the United States Navy commissions   
   > a ship.  It puts on this ship two commissioned officers, and a handful   
   > of non-commissioned, and otherwise fills it up with over a hundred and   
   > fifty cadets, half of them under the age of seventeen, and gives them an   
   > actual mission.  It's intended in part to be training for these cadets,   
   > to be sure, but it's still the Navy ordering official business.   
   >   
   > 	Is this scenario remotely credible to you?   
   >   
   Filling a ship with cadets for a _training_ cruise, sure.  Happens   
   regularly I'm sure.  Filling a ship with cadets to be immediately sent   
   in to combat, no, not really.  And putting a cadet, who was on   
   suspension pending the paperwork going thru to dismiss him from the   
   service for cheating, in command _after_ the battle is over (in the   
   process jumping him half a dozen grades) massively less so.   
      
   Now, I wouldn't be too terribly surprised if someone dug up a historical   
   incident from (counts how long its been since the US Civil War ended)   
   140+ years ago where something like that "ship of cadets in combat"   
   scenario actually happened.  If they did, I would expect it was done   
   solely on the authority of the Commandant of that particular academy,   
   _not_ on orders from far enough up the chain of command that some   
   Admiral signed his name to the order.  I _would_ be very surprised if   
   that same historical incident ended with one of those cadets being   
   assigned command of the ship before he graduated over one of those   
   commissioned officers after the emergency was over and the ship had   
   returned to home port.   
      
   --   
   Things I learned from Usenet #29: Do not chew the peach.   
   Veni, Vidi, Snarki.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)