Why would Starfleet separate TnT?

[CX]

This seems to be a common thing in fan fics. Seems like everytime marriage or being open about a romantic relationship is brought up, somehow the Starfleet of fan fic wants to separate them. Since Starfleet obviously is more lax in a lot of ways than the modern military, it strikes me as odd that Starfleet would separate a married couple. Not only would that make it impossible for them to have a marriage in anything more than name, but it's not something that the modern military does except on a temporary basis when the needs of their service branch require them to be deployed to different posts. It's true that there's still some of the old attitude about "If we wanted you to have a wife, we'd have issued you one with your duffle bag" still aorund today, but really there's nothing they can do about it unless the relationship in question is in violation of non-frat regs. So why would Starfleet ever when they're al labout exploring and all that instead of killing people and breaking things?

[Rigil Kent]

but really there's nothing they can do about it unless the relationship in question is in violation of non-frat regs.

That answers your question. They made a point of mentioning the non-frat regs in the first season and since Trip answers to T'Pol (despite outranking her ), their relationship is a clear problem in regards to the chain of command.

[CX]

Then why would they let them get married to begin with just to reassign one of them?

[Rigil Kent]

Beats me. One of the things that I kind of read into The Abomination (based on what, I can't quite say) is that SFC was at least partially responsible for the "break up". I don't know what it was that made me think that, but there must have been something in there for me to pick up on that and there's not a chance in a Hell that I'm going to go back and watch it again to find out.

To be entirely honest, I don't think that Starfleet would let them marry unless the command structure of Enterprise was readdressed in some fashion (i.e. remove T'Pol from XO spot and assign a new officer to the -01 to do that job, with Trip and T'Pol answering to the new XO and not to each other ... but then, you still have the boggle of what happens if the CO (Super!Archer) and the new XO are incapacitated: who takes over?) If TnT insisted on marrying, I don't see how SFC could allow them to continue to serve aboard Enterprise together. It's one of those "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" issues, I guess, with the unspoken rule being "Keep it discreet and keep it under control ... or we'll have to deal with this in some fashion."

As you well know, the chain of command is there for a reason and the whole TnT relationship already muddies up the waters a lot.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

See, this is why it would've been much better if T'Pol had just been an Vulcan observer/overseer from the beginning, and not in the chain of command. She could then have been a civilian scientist, heading a civilian science team on board. Perhaps this is how the relationship between Starfleet and UESPA should've worked. Starfleet is the military wing and UESPA is the civilian wing (sort of NASA but not quite).

But then, that would've made sense...

[CX]

Heh, that's sort of how I did FND, but not really.

[Rigil Kent]

See, this is why it would've been much better if T'Pol had just been an Vulcan observer/overseer from the beginning, and not in the chain of command. She could then have been a civilian scientist, heading a civilian science team on board. Perhaps this is how the relationship between Starfleet and UESPA should've worked. Starfleet is the military wing and UESPA is the civilian wing (sort of NASA but not quite).

But then, that would've made sense...

There are a lot of things that we can look at and say "it would have been better if..." It would have been better if Archer was actually portrayed as competent instead of an idiot savant that no one would realistically follow. It would have been better if they had actually shown us the so-called Archer/T'Pol friendship develop instead of telling us it had evolved while showing us Archer being an asshole to her. It would have been better if season 2 hadn't sucked like it did. It would have been better if those morons-in-charge hadn't thought *the_abomination* was a good idea. It would have been better if...

This is just one of the things that they should have done differently. Personally, I would have had T'Pol been assigned as the Observer/Overseer thing and completely recast the Mayweather character to an older, grizzled space veteran so he could be the dedicated First Officer. But then, I'd also have redone a lot of things...

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

^ Yeah, I know...

And since we're now stuck with what we have, how can we go forward with a TnT relationship when she's an XO and he's the ChENg? I suppose there could be all types of angst involved and/or have them sneaking around a lot. The problem is that at least I hate that! But at the same time I'm one of those guys who actually likes it when there generally is a more realistic military way of doing things...

So, my solution would be for them to not officially marry while they both serve on the Enterprise. One can argue that the Bond is a de facto Vulcan marriage but one that Starfleet doesn't or cannot acknowledge, probably because it's so damn unique. While they may suspect TnT being "involved" they adopt a "don't ask, don't tell" policy that makes it an issue under their CO's discretion.

ETA: Shouldn't this thread be under "Trip and T'Pol Discussions"?

[Rigil Kent]

And since we're now stuck with what we have, how can we go forward with a TnT relationship when she's an XO and he's the ChENg? I suppose there could be all types of angst involved and/or have them sneaking around a lot. The problem is that at least I hate that! But at the same time I'm one of those guys who actually likes it when there generally is a more realistic military way of doing things...

So, my solution would be for them to not officially marry while they both serve on the Enterprise. One can argue that the Bond is a de facto Vulcan marriage but one that Starfleet doesn't or cannot acknowledge, probably because it's so damn unique. While they may suspect TnT being "involved" they adopt a "don't ask, don't tell" policy that makes it an issue under their CO's discretion.

Realistically? The moment SFC finds out, one or both of them will be reassigned. Once the E/R War kicks off, it honestly doesn't make a lot sense to keep TnT on the front lines so I would actually expect them to disappear into a Skunk Works project where they could be a "couple" without the complications of one outranking the other. I mean, the level of expertise that T'Pol has makes her far too valuable to risk with a maverick commander like Archer, and since they established that Trip was the expert when it came to warp stuff, he's also far too valuable to risk on the front.

ETA: Shouldn't this thread be under "Trip and T'Pol Discussions"?

Yeah. I kind of wondered why this thread wasn't in there myself.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Realistically? The moment SFC finds out, one or both of them will be reassigned.

Bummer! I guess I'll have to go for unrealistic then, as much as it pains me. But breaking them up would be a lot more painful.

Damn them for putting T'Pol in the chain of command in the first place (whether in Starfleet or not)!

Once the E/R War kicks off, it honestly doesn't make a lot sense to keep TnT on the front lines so I would actually expect them to disappear into a Skunk Works project where they could be a "couple" without the complications of one outranking the other. I mean, the level of expertise that T'Pol has makes her far too valuable to risk with a maverick commander like Archer, and since they established that Trip was the expert when it came to warp stuff, he's also far too valuable to risk on the front.

*coughs* Endeavour *coughs

[Rigil Kent]

Realistically? The moment SFC finds out, one or both of them will be reassigned.

Bummer! I guess I'll have to go for unrealistic then, as much as it pains me. But breaking them up would be a lot more painful.

I guess you could have them make the decision to put the relationship "on hold" (even though it clearly isn't on hold). I think it was Zane who made a suggestion along those lines over at TrollBBS in regards to how the finale could have worked better ... the theory being TnT put the needs of Starfleet ahead of their own needs by deciding to hold off on any important decisions until after the war and then, in the finale, Trip gets very badly injured (but not stupidly killed) which then causes T'Pol to re-evaluate everything.

Damn them for putting T'Pol in the chain of command in the first place (whether in Starfleet or not)!

Why should it bother you that much? Those asshats were seriously toying with having the CO sleep with the XO in season 2, after all, and anyone with more than two functioning brain cells can tell you how bad an idea that is (complete lack of chemistry between the actors notwithstanding). Plus, there was that whole innuendo between the CO & the CMO in TNG, and that thing between Kirk & Rand. It's pretty obvious that the Trek producers have absolutely no clue how the chain of command really works and, as a result, Starfleet doesn't worry about it either.

Once the E/R War kicks off, it honestly doesn't make a lot sense to keep TnT on the front lines so I would actually expect them to disappear into a Skunk Works project where they could be a "couple" without the complications of one outranking the other. I mean, the level of expertise that T'Pol has makes her far too valuable to risk with a maverick commander like Archer, and since they established that Trip was the expert when it came to warp stuff, he's also far too valuable to risk on the front.

*coughs* Endeavour *coughs

I blame Elysium. I never intended on actually writing additional fics after that one but I sort of wrote myself into a corner with Trip becoming END's CO with T'Pol as his XO.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

I guess you could have them make the decision to put the relationship "on hold" (even though it clearly isn't on hold). I think it was Zane who made a suggestion along those lines over at TrollBBS in regards to how the finale could have worked better ... the theory being TnT put the needs of Starfleet ahead of their own needs by deciding to hold off on any important decisions until after the war and then, in the finale, Trip gets very badly injured (but not stupidly killed) which then causes T'Pol to re-evaluate everything.

Gah! That'd be the "sneaking around" scenario that I'm NOT a fan of. And it would also mean a lot of more angst, which I think they've had enough of already.

No, as imperfect as it is, given what we've been given, I'll subscribe to the "don't ask, don't tell" thing I mentioned above.

Once the E/R War kicks off, it honestly doesn't make a lot sense to keep TnT on the front lines so I would actually expect them to disappear into a Skunk Works project where they could be a "couple" without the complications of one outranking the other. I mean, the level of expertise that T'Pol has makes her far too valuable to risk with a maverick commander like Archer, and since they established that Trip was the expert when it came to warp stuff, he's also far too valuable to risk on the front.

*coughs* Endeavour *coughs

I blame Elysium. I never intended on actually writing additional fics after that one but I sort of wrote myself into a corner with Trip becoming END's CO with T'Pol as his XO.

Heh! But then I guess showing the Romulan War with TnT working on some research facility far behind the lines wouldn't be that exciting in the long run...

[blacknblue]

Don't look at me guys. I moved 'em to Vulcan. Realistically, you cannot expect a man or woman to be cold blooded about ordering their spouse into harm's way. The attitude you see on these boards is that Starfleet shouldn't be so stick in the mud about it. Just let them get married and serve together on Enterprise in wedded bliss. Bullshit. What happens when T'Pol is required to order Trip to remain in Engineering to manually eject the warp core, otherwise the whole ship blows up. But if he does that, he is dog meat. Can she do it? Can she survive mentally afterward?

Non-frat rules are there for a reason.

[Rigil Kent]

Exactly. That's my POV on the matter as well, and is one of the issues that I'm constantly struggling with in regards to the Endeavour stuff. Realistically, there is no way that SFC would allow T'Pol to serve aboard Endeavour as Trip's XO, especially if there is official knowledge of their relationship. I get that KTR doesn't care for the added angst about them not "being together", but I generally find myself gritting my teeth in protest when I read a fic where SFC allows them to serve together while openly being a couple.

I remain convinced that, in a real world scenario, one or both of them would have been yanked from Enterprise following the Terra Prime incident, even if there was no actual hard evidence that they had been romantically involved. Starfleet simply couldn't afford to run the risk that there was something going on ...

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

^ I get what you're saying, but then we should just close down everything and not bother with any TnT at all since whether they're officially married or not, they would indeed be fraternizing.

I suppose you could rewrite the whole concept, but we have the hand we're dealt with from TPTB. They're both in Starfleet on the same ship, called the Enterprise, on a show called Enterprise.

Either you don't let them have a relationship due to this. Or you have them in a relationship, but move them off the ship to let them do something else (probably much less exciting in terms of telling stories). Or you have them hiding their relationship on purpose (i.e. "sneaking around"), but frankly I don't think that is in either of their respective characters.

As I've said abovethread, the best way would be if T'Pol had never been in the chain of command from the beginning - first Vulcan overseer and then civilian scientist - but now she is a Starfleet officer and the XO. I suppose she could resign her commission but convince Starfleet to remain onboard as a civilian scientist, but at this point I think that would wreck havoc with how Starfleet normally organizes their crews.