Well, after Oneiros posted Kahurangi's biography timeline, I wound up adding another 1500 words to my omake. A retirement gift to our illustrious admiral.
Alas, I can't post it yet, unless Oneiros is prepared to make a few guarantees about future events not forcing me to rewrite it.
A number of people have put him in as a write-in, and I sympathize, though I disagree with them because I don't think it's worth the political trouble that Sulu's appointment would make given how little seniority in grade the man has.
Well, after Oneiros posted Kahurangi's biography timeline, I wound up adding another 1500 words to my omake. A retirement gift to our illustrious admiral.
Alas, I can't post it yet, unless Oneiros is prepared to make a few guarantees about future events not forcing me to rewrite it.
A number of people have put him in as a write-in, and I sympathize, though I disagree with them because I don't think it's worth the political trouble that Sulu's appointment would make given how little seniority in grade the man has.
I wonder if they'll try to enforce those shorter terms for Admirals
Since that is technically our PC I'm of course for keeping her on the post as long as possible, but I wonder if we'll start eating penalties in 5 years or so.
I actually think Sousa is a good choice among the options we were given, but I'm not sure why "seniority in position" should be any kind of deciding factor among those four. Or at all, really.
Since the Starfleet Admiral reports directly to the Federation Council, they function much more like a Minister of Defense or Secretary of Defense/War in any government we're familiar with. They wear two hats- both the highest officer in Starfleet but also they are in a very real sense part of the Government itself. So basically I don't see why President Jorlyth sh'Arrath would consider "time in office" as a particularly important factor or why selection would even necessarily be limited to Vice Admirals. I mean, it's probably good to pick a high-ranking Starfleet officer because of that first hat, but that shouldn't be viewed as a major limitation. I see no reason a particularly good Rear Admiral couldn't be leapfrogged into position, skipping Vice Admiral rank entirely.
Admiral of Starfleet is a political appointment as much as, if not more than, a military promotion. It should be viewed as such, with the factors that go into political appointments rather than military promotions.
I actually think Sousa is a good choice among the options we were given, but I'm not sure why "seniority in position" should be any kind of deciding factor among those four. Or at all, really.
Since the Starfleet Admiral reports directly to the Federation Council, they function much more like a Minister of Defense or Secretary of Defense/War in any government we're familiar with. They wear two hats- both the highest officer in Starfleet but also they are in a very real sense part of the Government itself. So basically I don't see why President Jorlyth sh'Arrath would consider "time in office" as a particularly important factor or why selection would even necessarily be limited to Vice Admirals. I mean, it's probably good to pick a high-ranking Starfleet officer because of that first hat, but that shouldn't be viewed as a major limitation. I see no reason a particularly good Rear Admiral couldn't be leapfrogged into position, skipping Vice Admiral rank entirely.
Admiral of Starfleet is a political appointment as much as, if not more than, a military promotion. It should be viewed as such, with the factors that go into political appointments rather than military promotions.
There was a point during all of this when I had the very uncomfortable realisation that in the system I've cooked up, Starfleet doesn't really have proper civilian oversight
No SecDef/SevNav that runs things and reports to the President, instead it's a holistic force with a single point of authority who reports directly to the President. Speaking in terms of government architecture that's ... uh, not great.
There was a point during all of this when I had the very uncomfortable realisation that in the system I've cooked up, Starfleet doesn't really have proper civilian oversight
No SecDef/SevNav that runs things and reports to the President, instead it's a holistic force with a single point of authority who reports directly to the President. Speaking in terms of government architecture that's ... uh, not great.
In one parallel universe they had more oversight and restrictions. Until T'Lorel snapped, orbit-stunned the council while allies made coups on Vulcan, Andor and Tellar and then she declared herself temporary dictator out of logical necessity.
That's how the negaverse empire-quest was born.
There was a point during all of this when I had the very uncomfortable realisation that in the system I've cooked up, Starfleet doesn't really have proper civilian oversight
No SecDef/SevNav that runs things and reports to the President, instead it's a holistic force with a single point of authority who reports directly to the President. Speaking in terms of government architecture that's ... uh, not great.
Oneiros, you're right about that- on the other hand, it kind of ties into the fact that Starfleet is officially only semi-military. And Briefvoice isn't wrong to note that it doesn't have direct civilian oversight.
On the other hand, that problem is shared in canon; there is no evidence of a separate analogue to the Ministry of Defense or whatever, of a civilian agency that exists as a parallel authority structure to Starfleet itself.
I actually think Sousa is a good choice among the options we were given, but I'm not sure why "seniority in position" should be any kind of deciding factor among those four. Or at all, really.
It's not necessarily critical, but it's a factor. If you're going to ignore it, it should be for a very good reason- and frankly, I don't think Sulu's talents are good enough compared to Sousa to constitute sufficient reason.
...I see no reason a particularly good Rear Admiral couldn't be leapfrogged into position, skipping Vice Admiral rank entirely.
Admiral of Starfleet is a political appointment as much as, if not more than, a military promotion. It should be viewed as such, with the factors that go into political appointments rather than military promotions.
The flip side of that is that it is still a military promotion, and one that Starfleet has to live with. The admiral commanding Starfleet has to have high enough administrative abilities and full enough understanding of how Starfleet operates that they can run the whole thing. Just about the only people really qualified to do that are the vice admirals. Most of the existing rear admiral slots have responsibilities too narrow for us to be confident that they can handle the job at the top of the totem pole.
Remember the lingering concerns we've seen that Sulu may be too overconfident, too sure of his own abilities? Weren't you the one who wrote:
Sulu replies cooly. "If I were in either of those positions and if things turned out the same, then I would take responsibility."
If things turned out the same. Implying he thinks maybe they wouldn't have, thinks Sousa to herself. And perhaps they wouldn't have turned out the same; Sulu was more experienced in that sort of operation. Everyone knows the choice between him and zh'Rhashaan was HumInt versus SigInt. Maybe he would have thought of mines or charted a different sort of operation. It's that same old damn thing with Sulu, where she can't decide if he's being arrogant or simply having a realistic assessment of how superior his own capabilities are. Is it the hubris of Icarus or the agony of brilliant Daedelus?
That was two years ago, and no more than a year or so after Sulu was promoted to his present rank.
Now that I think about it myself, maaaybe it's a little too soon to put him in place as Admiral of Starfleet.
...
Now, on a side note, if the Council or the President wants to appoint a civilian office comparable to a Minister of War or a Secretary of Defense, and put civilians- or retired flag officers- in those offices, they can. But that office, even if it has oversight over Starfleet, does not share the full responsibilities of the admiral commanding Starfleet. A person qualified to handle the bureaucratic oversight of Starfleet is NOT necessarily a person qualified to actually run Starfleet themselves. For that, the Federation needs someone who has serious experience operating entire departments and branches of Starfleet over a long enough period of time for the president to assess their performance fairly. Not someone who's been rising through the ranks like a blazing comet.
@OneirosTheWriter, does resilience subtract cost only for annual pp % penalty purposes, or does it permanently reduce cost which impacts the cost carryover to next year?
Is the cost carryover halving done on the whole current cost (minus resilience?)? or just on the cost accrued this year (minus resilience?)?
Okay, I've double checked my tally, and they're still different:
Story Update
Impact
Cost
2310 EOY
65
24
2310 Cost Carryover (halved cost)
-12
2311.Q1.M2 Master of Orion
2
2
2311.Q1.M3 Master of Orion
3
6
2311.Q2.M1 Master of Orion
5
1
2311.Q2.M2 Captain's Log
2
2311.Q2.M2 Master of Orion
9
6
2311.Q2.M3 Captain's Log
4
2311.Q2.M3 Master of Orion
9
6
2311.Q3.M1 Master of Orion
6
4
2311.Q3.M2 Captain's Log
3
2311.Q3.M2 Master of Orion
2
7
2311.Q3.M3 Captain's Log
3
2
2311.Q3.M3 Master of Orion
7
4
2311.Q4.M1 Master of Orion
8
10
2311.Q4.M2 Master of Orion
7
2311.Q4.M3 Captain's Log
3
2311.Q4.M3 Master of Orion
9
5
2311 EOY Total Increases
82
53
2311 Legislated Plan Annual
28
2311 EOY Total
65+82+28=175
24-12+53=65
2311 Resilience
-10
2311 Annual PP Income % Penalty
(65-10)/100=55%
So EOY impact should be 147 175 instead of 162, and EOY cost should be 65 (55) instead of 47 (37), leading to annual pp income % penalty of 55%.
edit: Oh wait, forgot to include the annual 28 impact (which technically is applied at end of Q2), so total impact is actually 175, which is good (+13 from your tally of 162).
Okay, I see you've updated this. It's now very close to what I'm getting. It does confirm that the Rigel membership does NOT remove the major affiliate bonus 0.1/0.3/0.15.
Official 2310 crew income* (excluding 40.5=>40.05 typo correction "income"): 9.6 officer, 10.3 enlisted, 13.1 techs
Official 2311 crew income (derived from above): 10.25 officer, 12.2 enlisted, 14 techs
Increase in crew income YoY: 0.65 officer, 1.9 enlisted, 0.9 techs
* I previously included the 2310 40.5=>40.05 typo correction as temporary income for this year - I've removed this so that it makes sense.
Now, it still differs from my tally by 0.2/0.2/0.2, which translates to two minor affiliates' 0.1/0.1/0.1 being missed.
I already noted in this post that the official 2310 crew income (now with the 9.7=>9.6 correction) seems to be missing one minor affiliate 0.1/0.1/0.1 bonus.
It now looks like we're still missing that minor affiliate AND we're missing the new Kadeshi affiliate 0.1/0.1/0.1. Or is it intentional that the Kadeshi do NOT contribute that tech-based common affiliate bonus?
On consultation with Oneiros, I've decided to take my chances posting the omake Old Voices, New Vigor, since it's finished- and hope nothing bad happens to contradict this. Worst case, maybe I can go back and do some edits.
This takes place in the early part of 2312Q2, when as per Briefvoice's deployment plans the Constitution-B-class cruiser Lexington is dispatched to the anti-Syndicate task force.
Shuttlecraft Du Chatelet
Shuttle Bay, USS Lexington
Mid-April, 2312
Nyota Uhura rose from her seat and looked over the pilot's shoulder at the familiar sight of a Constitution's docking bay. Her battered Type G had seen better decades, but she'd become fond of it. Kearsarge wouldn't be using it this year, so she'd ordered it pulled from the disabled Constellation and assigned as her personal transport.
Yukikaze and Zephyr were fine ships, after all- the operation to capture the mastermind behind the attack on Kearsarge had proven it. But the brave little escorts weren't burdened with an excess of small craft. She could use all the shuttles she could get.
And Uhura had known the Type G for forty years. Two of her best friends had test-piloted them, once upon a time. Out Orion way, it could be comforting to have a personal vehicle you knew well enough to check for bombs personally, if the mood took you.
The shuttle grounded gently on deck plating of a pattern so familiar Uhura could swear she recognized faint patterns of scuff marks, though that had to be her imagination. Nostalgia could play tricks on an old girl like her.
Two officers in red jackets strode across the bay floor toward the shuttle- she recognized Captain Winslow, and made her way to the shuttle's hatch. She keyed the release and leaned out, looking at the captain- and the commander he'd brought along.
"Welcome aboard, admiral. I'm Captain Winslow, and this is my first officer, Mr. Amin."
She stepped off the shuttle, smiling. "Thank you, captain. Welcome to the cauldron. I hope you're looking for challenge, adventure, and maybe a surprise or two?"
Winslow tossed his head, spreading his hands slightly. "A man should be careful what he wishes for."
Nyota smiled, and motioned slightly, the three of them heading for the doors. She turned to Winslow, as they walked. "Nice to know they gave me a captain with a level head. And how's the Connie life treating you?"
"About like I remember from the Potemkin, ma'am. Lady Lex is back in business, and we've got a briefing planned for you on the bridge. We've got some of the junior officers running her from Battle Bridge, with my tactical officer riding herd- an exercise to get them up to speed on her."
"That's good too..." She stopped, eyes unfocused. "Amin... Amin... I remember you! Weren't you first officer on the T'Kumbra, back in '02?"
"...Yes, ma'am."
"I saw some of your dispatches. Good work saving the Cheron. We'd have missed her."
"Thank you, ma'am." Amin nodded firmly, squaring his shoulders a bit. Even commanders, who knew the ropes, could sometimes use a bit of cheer and compliments, she'd found.
Winslow tilted his head, catching Nyota's eye, before he spoke. "We've got flag accomodations furnished and ready if you- or Commodore Eaton- want to move aboard, ma'am."
"Thank you, captain. I suspect we'll take you up on that." Losing Kearsarge had certainly made the decision to move the flag over to the new-old cruiser a lot simpler. She and Victoria were lucky to be alive.
They came to a junction, and Commander Amin moved to gesture with his hand. "This w-" Then the first officer swallowed the rest of his polite attempt at steering, remembering just who he was talking to.
The admiral's eyes twinkled, a subtle, amused smile touching her lips. "I think I know the way, commander."
Bridge, USS Lexington
The wrinkled commodore sitting sideways in the helmsman's chair seemed peculiarly at ease there. For a second Uhura didn't recognize him, then she smiled. Forty-five years fell away, for a moment. "Care to validate our course for Babel, Mister Leslie?"
"Smooth sailing, ma'am. And if any Syndicate cutters decide to try their luck with a strafing run at Warp Ten, they're in for a nastier surprise than we gave 'em last time." Eddie's smile showed teeth.
Winslow coughed. "Ma'am, if I might take a moment- something's come up. I'd like to get it nailed down in the next few minutes, but it'll just take me a moment in the ready room."
"You have a ready room now?"
"Yes, ma'am-"
"Then go ahead. Shoo. Shoo." Nyota's inner stock of laughter boiled over as the young captain departed the bridge.
Eddie grinned wryly. "Yeah, they have a ready room. Sort of. There were a few changes to the layout. Shipyard swapped the old bridge computer banks out for slimmer ones, and there was just barely enough space for it. It was the least we could do. I remember Jim Kirk always grousing about having to go down to his quarters to do paperwork, don't you?"
She laughed again, shaking her head. "It was the only way we ever got him off the bridge without a transporter."
"That, or try to wrestle him, and I gave up having judo contests with Kirk after Deneva. That man had some moves." Eddie groaned, shaking his head in memory.
"Well, I'm sure the ready room will be an improvement. Are the bridge modules in good shape?"
"Sure. There wasn't any tritanium in the module itself, except for the outer armor layer. All we had to do was pop the bridge module out of the saucer, give it a light dusting to remove the armor plate, and slap a new forging on."
"Good. I won't have to worry about the viewscreen cracking open, then." Nyota looked at Eddie, tilting her head. "I served on Lexington for a little while, once. Just how much of the old girl did the yard re-use?"
"Warp core's the same, but the software's new. So are the feed lines and the safety systems. And there's some really brilliant work done lately on power distribution grids. Between the theoretical side, and some of the feedback from Cheron since the '90s, we managed less of an... iffy... system to let her shunt warp power to phasers and shields. Should help in a fight."
"Glad you could come up with something to help with that. I always thought the refits relied too much on torpedoes for their 'better firepower.'
"Mm. Well..." Leslie wiggled his hand. "Not sure I agree; photons decide a lot more fights than they don't. But if you want to stick to beams, we've given you about as much main phaser power as Courageous had. Before you let your chief engineer run off the leash, at least."
Nyota allowed herself to look a bit smug at that. She was proud of what she'd done with Courageous's crew, and she felt she had a right to be. Mentally she ran down the list of ship systems. She'd read the summaries, but there was less risk of unexpected surprises if she got the goods directly from Eddie.
"I know you saved the nacelles; were they really serviceable as-is?"
"Yes'm, both of them- the ships we did first were picked out for that. The rest of Lady Lex's old hull may be half-sintered metal dust, but there wasn't anything wrong with her legs."
"Thank you, warp fields!" Nyota smiled, then remembered something she'd seen on the way in. A puzzler. "But then why did you replace the main deflector? It should have been fine, too."
Eddie grinned. "Wouldn't do to offer you a flagship that couldn't keep up, ma'am. The dish design's actually new- a variant sketch dropped from the Renaissance. It wouldn't have worked so well on the new hullform. But it fits like a dream with the Connies' astrodynamics. She can't sprint like a four-engine ship, but she can- almost- marathon like an Excelsior. We tried on the way over. The warp field and the hull held up fine, but the power wasn't there to stay at Warp Eleven the whole way."
That triggered a chain of memories. Nyota slumped into one of the console seats, and shaking her head. "We canna give her no more." Leslie fell silent too. She felt some of the spirit draining from her, old shadows passing over the Lexington's storied bridge. "I wonder what Scotty would think." She sighed. They'd lost Scotty and the captain so close together.
Captain Winslow stepped back on the bridge, taking in the glum mood and overhearing her last words. Quietly he handed glasses to the two senior officers, opening the violet bottle and pouring, then raised his own glass. "Absent companions." Uhura remembered, then, that the captain's stint in the Explorer Corps had put him in the thick of the Biophage crisis. On Sarek, a ship that had been savaged more than once.
Uhura and Leslie both raised their glasses, sipped, then gave identical worried glances at the contents.
Leslie grunted. "I'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind the changes to the design, but- this is that synthehol stuff, right?"
"Yes, sir."
"I don't think he'd like what we've done with the liquor cabinet. Then again, it's safe to have this stuff on duty, I'll give it that much."
"Progress?"
The yard dog snorted. "Admiral, you're the one who knows nineteen different languages or however many it is. Do any of them have a word for sideways-gress?"
Uhura thought about that for a moment. "The Caitians have something close. And as far as I'm concerned, English does... now." Her lip quivered with mirth.
Home of Adm. (ret) Vitalia Kahurangi
May 26, 2311
0920 Hours Local Time
You step outside your door, taking in the scenery outside your front door. Of this home that you love, that you had so little time to visit during your years in San Francisco, even with transporters and hypersonic passenger craft.
Speaking of transporters- right on schedule, the blue shimmer materializes on the path to your door.
The commodore is on the dumpy, wrinkly side by Starfleet standards, showing his years more than most. But then you remember the reason. Eddie Leslie does well to maintain himself as he does; most men with that level of nerve damage would have been out on the disabled list back in the '70s. He struggles, slightly, not so much with the weight of the covered frame in his arms, as with the bulk.
You move to let him into your house. "Hello, Commodore. Welcome in- set that down, here, let me help you." You note the tension in Leslie's eyes as he bends to set the painting down, and a flicker of gratitude as you stabilize the frame, making sure it will balance properly on the table by the door.
"Thank you, ma'am. I hope retirement's treating you well?"
You nod. "It has its charms. For one, the fish are biting."
"Can't see it for myself yet, but glad you like it. You've earned it." Leslie nods respectfully.
Genuinely curious, you tilt your head. "Why not, by the way?"
"Paperwork. I'm legally dead."
"...Really." A certain fraction of the Enterprise's old crew have a gift for the probably-fictional 'no shit story.' Leslie is one of them.
"As a doornail. Dikronium cloud-monster ate all my blood on Argus Ten. McCoy told the captain I was dead, then figured out a way to save me anyway. But by the time that got into the records, the captain had already submitted his logs, and this was the one time that Personnel had to go and act fast."
You laugh. "That can't have been fun to untangle."
"You have no idea, ma'am. You see, having my blood eaten didn't do me any favors, and never let 'em tell you a nerve pinch doesn't have side effects. At least not when the Vulcan's in a hurry." Eddie's face twitches. "I had to leave the Enterprise in '68, a couple of months before Chekov got transferred out. And by '71, I, uh, wasn't in great shape. I started thinking hard about a medical discharge."
"I don't blame you."
"That was when I found out I was legally dead. Hadn't noticed before; my pay kept coming because Payroll heard I was alive and well in time to fix things. It was all the other departments that got confused."
"So, what did you do?" You are very much certain, now, that this is a 'no shit' story. But it's starting to get entertaining.
"Exactly what you'd think. I convinced three Vulcans and a duotronic computer bank try to reason out what I'd have to do to get discharged from the service. As best as I can tell, I'd have needed to be in four places at once, filing six mutually exclusive kinds of paperwork, with identical submission dates. Then I'd have to hope they cancel each other out destructively instead of constructively."
"...Really."
"Well, I figured out a few months later how to get it down to two places at once and four kinds of paperwork, and for a while I was tempted to ask a few old friends if they could somehow rig it up for me by getting a transporter to hiccup the right way. But... no." Leslie shrugs. "So, nothing for it but to get better, pick myself up, and keep soldiering on."
"I can start to see how that sounded like less trouble." You smile, remembering the physical therapy you had to go through after what happened on the Lexington in '67... and comparing it to some of your more furious clashes with Personnel.
At least with therapy, you had the pleasure of making it back to duty, even back onto Lady Lex's bridge for a happy year. But fighting Personnel? Worse than the Syndicate, in some ways.
Truly, those were the days. You're proud of what you've done in the past eleven years, but shipboard life was special. And nearly every officer you've ever known has a fond place in her heart for her first ship. Lexington was, for you, not an exception to that rule.
The shipyard man chuckles. "And if you thought getting a medical discharge was hard, back then? I was thirty-two. I hadn't even thought about what a mess trying to retire is when you're already dead!"
"Have you thought about talking to Seruk?"
"Of course. He was one of the Vulcans. He wouldn't even look at the papers without all the I's dotted and the T's crossed, and you probably know that better than I do, ma'am. So... retirement would be more work for me than work is." Leslie shrugged, then the beginnings of a foolish grin creep across his face.
"Riiight." You drawl, then smile. "Best of luck with the alternative, then."
"Thank you, ma'am."
You pause a moment, then ask a question that'd been on your mind since you remembered word that Leslie had been down to Orion space recently. "How's Uhura?"
"She seemed in good shape- tough as nails, ma'am. Did she ever tell you about the time she got her brain erased by that crazy, misplaced twentieth-century probe?"
"What, V'Ger?"
"No, the other one. Before that. Nasty little thing; we were lucky Kirk was there to talk the hunk of junk to death. He had a way with computers. Saved all our necks, more than once."
"Mine, too." You nod. "I was on the Lexington when your tactical computer went rogue."
"Oh? That's right, you would have been! Hell... Good thing you made it out, ma'am. Me, I've never been able to hear the word 'Daystrom' since without seeing the crazy on that man's face. After the stuff he pulled..." Leslie shakes his head. "The arrogant son of a short circuit and a busted torpedo started struggling pretty hard in the turbolift. Had to twist his arm to get him all the way to sickbay. They, ah, did a pretty good job popping his shoulder back together, I'm told."
"Thanks for that. And don't tear yourself up over it, Eddie. There wasn't much more the twenty of you could have done. At least the mess taught us know how much computer is too much computer."
You rub your left arm, twenty centimeters above the wrist, absently, feeling the slight discontinuity in the texture of your skin. You didn't know Daystrom had put up that kind of a struggle. 'Dislocated' isn't a match for 'had to be reattached,' but it's... something.
Leslie smiles. "There's that. Anyway, Uhura. Ma'am, she was as blank as a newborn child after what that probe did to her brains, but she bounced back hard. A week or two, and she'd patched together enough of her memory to be back on the job."
"Hm." You nod approvingly. "That is tough as nails."
Leslie grins, showing teeth. "When you picked her to go show the Cardies what we're made of, I almost felt sorry for the bastards... but I don't feel one bit sorry for the Syndicate."
"Me neither."
"Anyway, I should show you your retirement gift. A captain I know painted it a little while ago." You "He calls it... Renaissance. Wanted me to unveil it in steps, too- like this."
A red world sits at the top of the picture, as Leslie pulls the cover down off the topmost stripe of the painting. He holds the cloth in place above the bulk of the frame. You purse your lips, before recognizing the planet as Mars, its northern hemisphere hanging upside-down. You smile. "Utopia Planitia?"
"Got it, ma'am."
"Well, I imagine I know the subject of the piece, then." Kahurangi's smile put a crinkle around her eyes.
"Oh, you know the subject, ma'am. SURPRISE!" Leslie drops the cloth, and you gasp.
Center stage of this painting is taken by a million ton, new-build cruiser all right. Just not the one you'd been expecting.
You know, now, that this 'mystery captain' was Winslow. You remember reading in his dossier that he likes to paint. And Captain Winslow, formerly of the USS Sarek, did a marvelous job capturing the dissipating puffs of the ship's reaction jets, and the beginning glimmer of light around the impulse drive.
But the ship readying to depart from Utopia Planitia does not mount the broad nacelles of the ship that bears the painting's name. Does not have the blue-grey of the Rennies' new tritanium-carbide armor matrix.
No, the ship that takes center stage in this painting has the familiar lines and haze-grey paint of the Constitution-class, that so nearly perished from the galaxy.
And on her saucer- Lexington.
Your Lexington, renewed and remade, in the shipyard you struggled so hard to create. A vision that could never have existed, before your years at the head of Starfleet, and that came true so soon after your retirement.
You smile slowly, old tear ducts slow to respond, though you can feel their impulse to shed a bit of joy at Captain Winslow's gift. "Renaissance. From the French. For 'rebirth.' I should have known."
"Captain Winslow finished it just before we reached Orion space. He thought you should have it."
"I'll have to thank him." You know just the place to hang it.
On the other hand, that problem is shared in canon; there is no evidence of a separate analogue to the Ministry of Defense or whatever, of a civilian agency that exists as a parallel authority structure to Starfleet itself.
A number of people have put him in as a write-in, and I sympathize, though I disagree with them because I don't think it's worth the political trouble that Sulu's appointment would make given how little seniority in grade the man has.
wasn't he specifically excluded from the vote because he does not have sufficient time in office, and is therefore just not eligible for promotion at this time?
wasn't he specifically excluded from the vote because he does not have sufficient time in office, and is therefore just not eligible for promotion at this time?
wasn't he specifically excluded from the vote because he does not have sufficient time in office, and is therefore just not eligible for promotion at this time?
If the president wants to appoint Sulu, I'm pretty sure she CAN. Oneiros confirmed that, or came close to it.
The catch is that this will have negative political repercussions.
Which is probably not so good- I mean, do we really want Sulu's first years in office to be spent under a cloud over how rapidly he rose through the admiral ranks? Remember, he was only made a rear admiral in '04 or '05 or so, to replace Chen in charge of the Explorer Corps.
You're not wrong, but there's a difference between a check and an oversight agency.
The Council has the authority to boss Starfleet around, but they're not commingled with Starfleet administratively. There's no bureaucracy that works directly for the Council and tracks the details of Starfleet's budget, handles its paperwork, evaluates its weapons projects, and so on.
Instead, all that seems to be handled directly by the military hierarchy.
Now, this kind of system can certainly work. It's been done successfully. But it does have the flaw of being a lot less resilient if Starfleet begins to feel like it shouldn't be doing what the Council says.
Which may help to explain why the Council came down on Admiral Rogers so hard, and why they seem to have rather... sharply curtailed Starfleet in the immediate aftermath. They might have gone even farther if not for the Biophage crisis blowing up when it did.
If the president wants to appoint Sulu, I'm pretty sure she CAN. Oneiros confirmed that, or came close to it.
The catch is that this will have negative political repercussions.
Which is probably not so good- I mean, do we really want Sulu's first years in office to be spent under a cloud over how rapidly he rose through the admiral ranks? Remember, he was only made a rear admiral in '04 or '05 or so, to replace Chen in charge of the Explorer Corps.
You're not wrong, but there's a difference between a check and an oversight agency.
The Council has the authority to boss Starfleet around, but they're not commingled with Starfleet administratively. There's no bureaucracy that works directly for the Council and tracks the details of Starfleet's budget, handles its paperwork, evaluates its weapons projects, and so on.
Instead, all that seems to be handled directly by the military hierarchy.
Now, this kind of system can certainly work. It's been done successfully. But it does have the flaw of being a lot less resilient if Starfleet begins to feel like it shouldn't be doing what the Council says.
Which may help to explain why the Council came down on Admiral Rogers so hard, and why they seem to have rather... sharply curtailed Starfleet in the immediate aftermath. They might have gone even farther if not for the Biophage crisis blowing up when it did.
@Briefvoice - I have to admit, I saw "following from three parallel Excelsior builds with a full five Ambassador buids" on your shipbuild sheet and felt just a wee bit faint!
About the same way that real militaries function in a crisis?
I mean, the US has the Department of Defense and the actual military branches of the armed forces, for example. The DoD is a civilian agency, but it plays a large role in the administration and logistics of the military. And much of time, even most of the time, the Secretary of Defense who runs DoD is NOT a serving or former military officer.
You're not wrong, but there's a difference between a check and an oversight agency.
The Council has the authority to boss Starfleet around, but they're not commingled with Starfleet administratively. There's no bureaucracy that works directly for the Council and tracks the details of Starfleet's budget, handles its paperwork, evaluates its weapons projects, and so on.
"The Director of UESPA, she answers to more people than you can imagine. A nightmare job; you wouldn't get me in that seat for the fish in the sea, but you better believe she tries to keep them all happy. Who does the Admiral of Starfleet have to keep happy, eh? No one but the Federation Council."
"Still seems like a jump to say Starfleet is in service to Starfleet."
There's a pause.
"This is my own private feeling, da? Not speaking for UESPA. I want to make that clear. But what auntie Olesya thinks is that Starfleet is like another member world of the Federation all on its own. It has its own mining colonies, its own shipyards, its own culture, and so many in Starfleet are children of those who were in Starfleet."
"Hardly a majority."
"But enough, eh? The United Federation of Planets is a great thing, but so much is still run by member worlds, under guidelines and goals of the Federation. When you look at it, very similar to how Starfleet runs its own affairs, answering to the Federation."
"United Earth's worlds, collectively, have seven seats on the Federation Council."
"And do you think Starfleet's Fleet Admiral has less influence than a Councillor? Ah, but we could go round and round and we miss my point. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, Cecil. Starfleet works well, and its ability to pursue all the grand ideals of the Federation independently allow the Federation to function, alongside maybe the diplomatic service and your own FBS."
wasn't he specifically excluded from the vote because he does not have sufficient time in office, and is therefore just not eligible for promotion at this time?