Monday, July 12, 2010

Pilot: Emissary

Situation: The show begins with the scene at Wolf 359, as Locutus of Borg (formerly Jean-Luc Picard) informs all Federation vessels opposing him that resistance is futile. Captain Sisko and his fellow Starfleet captains attempt to stop the Borg cube before it can reach Earth.

What I would do: Get all civilians off the ship before zerging the cube.

What Sisko does: The opposite. His inadequately armed and armored ship is immediately hit; many civilians, including Sisko's wife, die in the process. Seriously, Sisko, WTF ? What kind of a captain attacks a vastly superior foe with civilians on board ? If that's what they teach at the Academy, I wonder how the Federation even still exists.



Situation: At the end of the episode, the Federation learns that their latest acquisition -- the stripped down and virtually abandoned Deep Space Nine station -- is now parked right in front of the only stable wormhole known to exist. It is now a key asset which will open up new avenues of exploration, cultural exchange, research, resource acquisition, you name it.

What I would do: Immediately dispatch a Galaxy-class cruiser (at the very least) to DS9, fully loaded with Runabouts, phaser banks, shield emitters, SIF generators, photon torpedoes, sensor probes, and any other equipment I could think of. Begin installing all that stuff as soon as the cruiser arrives. Inform the engineering teams that if they can't find enough space on the hull to install an extra phaser bank, they're not looking hard enough.

What Starfleet does: Deliver three (count 'em, three) Runabouts to the station, and wish them luck. Put DS9 under the authority of some guy whose idea of battle tactics is to zerg a full-fledged Borg cube with civilians on board (granted, he was recommended by the de-Borgified Picard, but still). If I didn't know better, I would've thought that Starfleet doesn't care much for the wormhole.


That said, though, Sisko makes several commendably shrewd decisions right after setting foot at DS9; he may be a lousy combat officer, but he's a great administrator. He also completely ignores the Prime Directive when dealing with the wormhole aliens, a.k.a. The Prophets -- which is fine, it's what I would do, and besides, no one follows that directive anyway.

4 comments:

  1. In fairness, it's not really Sisko's fault, it's all of Starfleet's. Yeah, they have the fig leaf of, "Uh, you can detach the saucer section," but really 24th c. Trek pretty consistently sends civilians into harm's way. Sisko attacked in a ship full of civilians because, hey, that's what you *do* in Starfleet.

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  2. Wait, but Sisko wasn't even captain of that particular ship. He was... first officer, second officer, something like that? The captain was played by the guy who later portrayed General Martok, actually.

    But yeah, "leave all the civilians on the lightly-armed saucer section without warp drive" is not so much a winning strategy regardless.

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  3. Hi Bugmaster -- mmy here.

    Really interested to see where you will go with this. I remember when DS9 first came out and I was headbangingly frustrated as the incredibly bad military/tactical strategies that we saw all the time. But then I couldn't get over
    a) that Riker was not bounced from his position when he repeatedly turned down promotions.
    b) that Picard was ever given back his command position after the Locutus incident. Do you think any real military would ever trust that he was completely Borg free
    c) there really should have been wayyyyyy more attention paid to the PSTD issues -- one episode he has a bad time then everything is back to normal.

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  4. mmy - with regards to b), your point is especially apt since in fact he technically WASN'T Borg free, as we discover in I Borg and later First Contact. True, it turns out the Borgey bits left are benign (and even detrimental to the Borg) but as you say, unacceptable risk.

    Remember also that Riker was promoted to Captain BOBW. Apparently the reward for saving the Federation from the Borg is a demotion back to Commander at the end of the crisis.

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