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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest) Starfleet Ship Design Bureau, Refit ("To Boldly Go...")
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Considering Nash.
Not to actually do the job, just get it and then pull a Zaphod Beeblebrox and take off with the best prototype we currently have to unkown parts of the galaxy.
Straight through that Bajoran wormhole for example. Would make a good sidequest.
 
In our defense, the seniormost ranks of the admiralty as of 2300 consist of TOS-era veterans, and we have every reason to think humans were massively overrepresented in Starfleet back in those days.

chriswriter90 said:
A bit late for that since Earth is home to both Starfleet HQ and the Federation Council.
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Yeah, but nonhumans hold the majority of the votes on the Federation Council, by about a 7/8 margin. Just because Earth is the location of the capital doesn't mean humans run everything; the president and the leaders of AT LEAST four of the five major political parties are nonhuman.

However, as noted, humans seem heavily overrepresented in Starfleet, and this may have been even more true back in the 2260s than it is today. Since the people running Starfleet now are veterans of that era, that affects our supply of available candidates.

But I'm definitely going to favor a nonhuman after Sulu or maybe after Chen. I don't think Chen has a right as such to claim the admiralty- she was Kahurangi's protege and she's doing something really amazing for us in Shipyard Ops, but that doesn't automatically confer the top slot. We'll make up our minds then- and that is a point in time that's probably something like 6-7 years away.
 
aeqnai said:
This is the rank insignia that Valentina Sousa wears on her clasp every day, denoting her office as Admiral:


This is the canonical insignia for the same time period, for the rank above Sousa:


It's Fleet Admiral, and in the TOS movies it explicitly belonged to Commander, Starfleet.
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That probably got cut due to Khitometer Accords. It's like how during the Cold War the British Chief of the Defense Staff was a five star officer but post Cold War it was retired due to fleet shrinkage.

I'm guessing that Fleet Admiral or Admiral of the Fleet for those of the posters in the Commonwealth still has the same privledges as the modern equivalent aka it's a rare and high honor and is a lifetime appointment. (Retired Five Star Officers still draw active duty pay and are listed on the active list even though they're retired)
 
Also, the previous Fleet Admiral was presumably Cartwright, who was implicated in the conspiracy to sabotage the Khitomer Accords based on what I remember. It may well be that in the wake of the Khitomer Accords, the Council 'purged' Starfleet by forcing the resignation of everyone associated with the plot, mandating the retirement of large numbers of ships, and reducing the number of billets available.

This may have caused the Rogers admiralty to start off on the wrong foot even within Starfleet because he might end up being seen as the "hatchet man" forced to preside over a major reduction in Starfleet's forces... even though we know he privately wouldn't have been in favor of something like that.

Or there may have been another admiral between Cartwright and Rogers, who oversaw the build-down after Khitomer and then resigned shortly afterwards.
 
I think that Sulu comes next, then someone besides a human. I don't see the need to put Chen in the top seat, to be honest. Someone from one of the other three original member worlds.
 
Point is, if we're facing the situation where multiple Admiral billets are created, there exists a Fleet Admiral position already on the books. If we make a VADM Intelligence, and at some point VADM Personnel/Training, the organizational needs will start piling up. And we're not going to likely see a greatly decreased fleet in our foreseeable future.
 
Shey ch'Tharvasse is the most qualified non-human right now. He was Intel RADM, served as both Kahurangi's and Sousa's Chief of Staff, and would probably have the smoothest transition presuming he does not retire under Sulu.

e:
Rinias ch'Vohlet is old, was literally about to retire before he got promoted to VADM, and has been in Shipyard Ops related fields for most of his flag career (I count the SDB here). While he does a fine job, he'd have to pull a Seruk to last long enough to outlast both Sousa and Sulu, and he's less qualified based on positions previously held... unless we move him again.
 
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SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Shey ch'Tharvasse is the most qualified non-human right now. He was Intel RADM, served as both Kahurangi's and Sousa's Chief of Staff, and would probably have the smoothest transition presuming he does not retire under Sulu.

e:
Rinias ch'Vohlet is old, was literally about to retire before he got promoted to VADM, and has been in Shipyard Ops related fields for most of his flag career (I count the SDB here). While he does a fine job, he'd have to pull a Seruk to last long enough to outlast both Sousa and Sulu, and he's less qualified based on positions previously held... unless we move him again.
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So then, what are we looking at?
FADM Cartwright, ADM?, ADM Rogers, ADM Kahurangi, ADM Sousa, then possibly FADM Sulu and FADM ch'Tharvasse?
 
Things might be odd if we end up needing multiple Fleet Admirals running around...
 
UbeOne said:
Things might be odd if we end up needing multiple Fleet Admirals running around...
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By that point we'd probably end up having something approaching canon immediately prior to the Dominion War. Which either means something really good (The UFP is now expansive enough to need that much sector defense) or something really bad (we have sudden very very large need for ships, like say, if we were building up to defend against the Dominion or the Borg)
 
I'd very much prefer not to start adding Admiral billets, it just means an extra rank and an extra ~7 years or so before someone we like is qualified to lead starfleet, and that pretty much rules out anyone who reaches commodore late, as most of our EC captains do. It also narrows the successor choice down to a smaller number.

As for future Commanders of Starfleet, I made my peace with Sulu probably never getting there, nor Uhura. They are both over a decade older than Sousa, who might not be retiring for a long time. Age wise Chen, Ainsworth, Harriman, ka'Sharren, and to a lesser extend Eaton and Mbeki all look promising, along with just about all Vulcan characters.
 
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Nix said:
I'd very much prefer not to start to add Admiral billets, it just means an extra rank and an extra ~7 years or so before someone we like is qualified to lead starfleet, and that pretty much rules out anyone who reaches commodore late, as most of our EC captains do. It also narrows the successor choice down to a smaller number.

As for future Commanders of Starfleet, I made my peace with Sulu probably never getting there, nor Uhura. They are both over a decade older than Sousa, who might not be retiring for a long time. Age wise Chen, Ainsworth, Harriman, ka'Sharren, and to a lesser extend Eaton and Mbeki all look promising, along with just about all Vulcan characters.
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With the way the organisation developes, isn't 'politics' becoming more and more a trait Commander: Starfleet requires?
 
Nix said:
I'd very much prefer not to start to add Admiral billets, it just means an extra rank and an extra ~7 years or so before someone we like is qualified to lead starfleet, and that pretty much rules out anyone who reaches commodore late, as most of our EC captains do. It also narrows the successor choice down to a smaller number.

As for future Commanders of Starfleet, I made my peace with Sulu probably never getting there, nor Uhura. They are both over a decade older than Sousa, who might not be retiring for a long time. Age wise Chen, Ainsworth, Harriman, ka'Sharren, and to a lesser extend Eaton and Mbeki all look promising, along with just about all Vulcan characters.
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Pretty sure that when Sousa took over from Kahurangi it was actually mentioned that it was highly unlikely that her term would be as long as her predecessor. I would suspect that she (and most Admirals) will actually retire after ~5 years.
 
aeqnai said:
So then, what are we looking at?
FADM Cartwright, ADM?, ADM Rogers, ADM Kahurangi, ADM Sousa, then possibly FADM Sulu and FADM ch'Tharvasse?
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I don't want to try to predict who we'll put in the top slot past Sulu; a lot depends on who decides to retire and when, and I suspect that decision is made semi-randomly.

Nix said:
I'd very much prefer not to start to add Admiral billets, it just means an extra rank and an extra ~7 years or so before someone we like is qualified to lead starfleet, and that pretty much rules out anyone who reaches commodore late, as most of our EC captains do. It also narrows the successor choice down to a smaller number.
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I think we can have multiple Admiral billets without it meaning we need to grant yet another promotion to put someone in the top slot. "Commander, Starfleet" is a political appointee who happens to be an admiral, not necessarily someone who gets promoted to the top through the normal Personnel process.

As for future Commanders of Starfleet, I made my peace with Sulu probably never getting there, nor Uhura. They are both over a decade older than Sousa, who might not be retiring for a long time.
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Possible, but we know that the civilian leadership wants to try and bring about more rotation in the top slot, because they consider Kahurangi's eleven year term of office to be something of an anomaly, and potentially a troubling one. She might well have been under considerable pressure to retire by 2306-7 if not for her status as the heroine of the Biophage on the Federation home front. And for her status as the person who rehabilitated Starfleet's reputation after the Rogers admiralty and to an extent the Cartwright admiralty.

Given the precedent of McCoy (who may admittedly not have been in active service when he toured the Enterprise-D), Sulu staying on a bit longer wouldn't surprise me terribly. Uhura, likewise, though it's very much not certain. Whether our admirals retire at sixty or at eighty seems to have more to do with how much they love their jobs than anything else.

MTB said:
With the way the organisation developes, isn't 'politics' becoming more and more a trait Commander: Starfleet requires?
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I imagine there has literally never been a time at which this was not the case. Commander, Starfleet's job is almost entirely political and almost none of it is tactical.

The job places the highest demands on Politics/Diplomacy (this is where Sousa is probably absolutely amazing) and Nerve (Kahurangi was no doubt very solid here). Aggression is not necessarily a desirable trait though it's not a handicap in moderation, and Rule-Abiding is useful overall, but they're not as critical one way or the other.
 
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