Question Regarding DS9 Ep 'Valiant'

Quadlok · Post by **Quadlok** » 2004-09-23 05:23pm

Why the hell does Nog act like these cadets with their unnoficial battlefield promotions outrank him? He's an actual commisioned officer, their basicly just trainees with boot chevrons (don't remember the correct term for cadet ranks). So whats up? Does he still have that inferiority complex/hero worship thing in regards to red squadron that he had in 'Paradise Lost?"

Oh, and also, WORST. EPISODE. EVER! Who the hell wrote it, a crack smoking monkey?

Sidious · Post by **Sidious** » 2004-09-23 06:03pm

We already know from earlier episodes that Nog is completley obsessed with Red Squad. Thats the only explanation that makes sense.

Man I disliked that episode. Especially the 15 year old first officer, what a bitch. Of course whats sad is that cadet crew was acting more professional than most real starfleet crews weve seen.

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2004-09-23 08:03pm

Umm I thought Nog was still a cadet at that time. If not then it's his own damn fault for not taking charge.

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2004-09-23 08:46pm

Kamakazie Sith wrote:Umm I thought Nog was still a cadet at that time. If not then it's his own damn fault for not taking charge.

No, Nog had been promoted from cadet to Ensign earlier in the season with Favor the Bold.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2004-09-23 10:57pm

There's a thing called "Positional Authority" and the Chain of Command which is very iffy in this circumstance. Really, Nog should have been able to take command and order them to return to the nearest safe Federation base because their chain of command isn't very sound at that point since they are all technically trainees. On the same note, they could have felt that he wasn't in their COC and ignored him.

Basically, just because you outrank someone doesn't mean you can come waltzing into their command and take over because you outrank them. It's one of the reasons for having a chain of command. It minimizes the confusions over having conflicting orders.

It also allows for things like the CO of a ship being a Commander while maybe the ship's doctor or chaplain is a Captain. In both cases they aren't in the right line of work to be commanding a ship but they also still have to take orders from the Commander because he is in command of the ship. Granted, if he's smart he will be as respectful as possible but they are still technically under him in the chain of command.

Basically, if Nog had tried to assume command and they refused to let him do so a future trial would have probably ruled in Nog's favor but it was a bad situation all around. Really the Red Squad geeks should have been responsible enough to try and get home as soon as their last real officer got killed. Unfortunately these people were a bunch of brainwashed gung-ho types who had many of their dreams handed to them without having to go through the long process of earning them like they would have after graduating from the accademy.

I think Nog was SOL because of the Cult of Personality that had sprung up around the "Captain" of the Valiant. He even got sucked in for awhile.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2004-09-24 10:09am

I would agree with most of the points.

I am annoyed that this point wasn't even thought of. Even if Jake quietly pulled him to one side and asked why he didn't take command, if Nog had said that he didn't want to screw over the dynamic that let them stay alive this long.

Of course I would have prefered Nog to verbaly beet up on "Captian" Watters. possibly in his ready room. The way Watters condesendingly greets Nog, a Commisioned Officer in the Starfleet. He claims that he was given a battlefield commision to Capitan and used that authority to promote the other Cadets.

Ok I see if the Capitan essentialy made Watters the 'Captain' in order to give a coherent command structure to the ship, but that was only to get them home. He was not REALLY promoted to Capitan, he is still just a cadet who has violated a direct order from his commaning officer.

Said commanding officer told Watters to get the Valient back home with all haste. Instead he pretended that the Capitan and all the real officers were still alive to Starfleet Command and took on some missions in their name. THEN he even went directly against said mission. Starfleet ordered the Valient to make a discrete survay of the prototype Dominion Battleship using remote stealth probes. Instead he turns that into a mission to destroy it with some half cocked plan that results in the loss of a Capital Warship and all said data they have collected.

They might have performed admirably in terms of what training they had, but Watters simply had no perspecitve. I mean in their first engagement they went up against a Cardasian Cruiser and got shot up heavily. In 'Defiant', Riker and his experenced Maquis Crew (probably mostly former Starfleet officers) beat the SHIT out of an advanced Keldon class with no damage in about twenty seconds! Against that single Jem'Hadar fighter, they wasted about thirty seconds of phaser fire completly missing, then used up six Quantum Torpedoes. In the same timeframe, I've seen Sisko eat up a half dozen JH fighters with minimal damage.

Nog's far supperior training even shows the second he gets on. He knows the Valients engines better then a crew who have had to use them for over a year, thanks to his better training and tutelige under real Starfleet Officers. He was also the only one who had a chance to make their plan work.

They are cadets who are way out of their leauge. Nog SHOULD have (when Watters 'invited' him into his ready room) verbaly beaten the hell out of him. Reminding him that he is just and ONLY a Cadet, that he is supposed to obay Starfleet regulations and he damn well will start with right the hell now relinquishing command to the one REAL officer on the ship, not the trainee playing officer.

Of course I mostly blaim Starfleet Accadamy. After the events in 'Homefront', the squad should have been disbanded. Not given a Defiant class Starship and have how 'special' they are beaten into their skulls. That stupidity led to the loss of a valuable Capital Warship, valuable intelegence and the loss of personal.

Nog is a sensor and communications officer on another Defiant Class Starship. Watters and Red Squad are trainees who don't HAVE any authority at all, they havn't even graduated from Starfleet Accademy!

I wish we had seen Sisko beat up on Nog for his poor judgement, but alas it was skipped.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2004-09-24 10:59am

What really annoyed me as well in that episode was the utter bullshit logic used by Jake Sisko when he said that his dad would never pull a stunt lik ethe one that they were going to pull against the Dominion battleship. He would go back and get some help.

SINCE WHEN?!! You mean to tell me that Sisko never used a technobabble solution to beat an enemy when severly outgunned?! At least the Valiant crew actually took time to plan it out. Most of Sisko's technobabble solutions are done on the fly in the heat of combat. Sisko consistently gets into combat situtaions when he should get the hel out of dodge. Hell he's broken an Alliance that stood for almost a century because he couldn't stand seeing Cardasians curb stomped. Sisko is NOT the example to hold up as the Starfleet officer who knows when to back down.

I felt like throwing something on the screen. Jake your dad is probably even worse than these cadets.

Patrick Ogaard · Post by **Patrick Ogaard** » 2004-09-24 04:14pm

Stravo wrote:What really annoyed me as well in that episode was the utter bullshit logic used by Jake Sisko when he said that his dad would never pull a stunt lik ethe one that they were going to pull against the Dominion battleship. He would go back and get some help.

SINCE WHEN?!! You mean to tell me that Sisko never used a technobabble solution to beat an enemy when severly outgunned?! At least the Valiant crew actually took time to plan it out. Most of Sisko's technobabble solutions are done on the fly in the heat of combat. Sisko consistently gets into combat situtaions when he should get the hel out of dodge. Hell he's broken an Alliance that stood for almost a century because he couldn't stand seeing Cardasians curb stomped. Sisko is NOT the example to hold up as the Starfleet officer who knows when to back down.

I felt like throwing something on the screen. Jake your dad is probably even worse than these cadets.

Ah, but Jake doesn't exactly count as a dispassionate, objective observer when it comes to his own dad, the heroic Starfleet Captain, Emissary of the Prophets, bester of Q at fisticuffs, and best Cajun chef in the Bajoran system. Jake is the one person who might honestly be forgiven for seriously overestimating his father's common sense.

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2004-09-24 05:56pm

Stravo wrote: I felt like throwing something on the screen. Jake your dad is probably even worse than these cadets.

Thats not exsactly true, when did Sisko ever get himself killed pointlessly?
Of course I suppose that just proves he has greater character shields.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2004-09-24 06:05pm

Crazedwraith wrote:
Stravo wrote: I felt like throwing something on the screen. Jake your dad is probably even worse than these cadets.
Thats not exsactly true, when did Sisko ever get himself killed pointlessly?
Of course I suppose that just proves he has greater character shields.

That's exactly right. You just know that if Sisko was in that position, Jadzia would be figuring out the whole theta radiation bit, O'Brien would rig the tropedoes and Worf would be urging them to attack the battleship. The only difference being that Sisko's Defiant would have won.