Rigil Kent wrote:Let the Vulcans stick an officer on board a Terran vessel. This makes the Vulcans happy that the Terrans won't go do something truly stupid with the ship... which means that if something does happen to Enterprise, they'll be willing to lend a helping hand. This Vulcan also won't do any harm, but the experience level that he/she would bring to the ship will be priceless.
Except that the commanding officer basically ignored every single thing said Vulcan "suggested", so the point is moot.
At first, but not later on. I specifically remember Archer taking her advice and she acting surprised about it and he making some kind of comment that he'd learned to trust her experience... somewhere before S3.
Rigil Kent wrote:This whole argument with T'Pol totally ignores the other members of Starfleet who aren't serving aboard Enterprise. How do you think the 12 year veteran who is on the short list to make Commander is going to react when he finds out that a Vulcan joined Starfleet and was simply given the rank that he's been trying to make for years? There are only a certain number of slots for such a rank (based on Starfleet's apparent lack of ships), so suddenly, his entire career is put on hold because the brass wanted to bump a Vulcan with a questionable record ahead of him. He's going to be pissed off, and he won't be the only one. A lot of personnel in the Starfleet officer corps are going to see that as preferential treatment regardless of her qualifications, especially given how the show took great pains to point out how frustrated the humans were with their Vulcan "allies." It's naive to presume that everyone in Starfleet is going to accept this without complaint, especially given the very obvious xenophobia problem that was happening during the season wherein she received her rank of commander.
And frankly, based on the record I saw on the show, there's plenty of arguments to go around that suggest she isn't more qualified than he is, and, in fact, shouldn't be in the chain-of-command at all.
Probably the disagreement here stems more from our difference of opinion of T'Pol's command ability. Because my argument relies on an esteem of her record to support the legitimacy of an exchange program. I admit, if you don't think she deserved that distinction, then in that respect she shouldn't have been given a Starfleet rank of Commander.
As for other Starfleet officers being frustrated, though, I don't really see it mattering because the ONE thing about her funky transition from VHC to Starfleet was that she didn't change jobs and therefore it would be really difficult to argue that she stole somebody's job from them, because she already was the Enterprise's XO. Sure, maybe people would feel that way anyway, but IMO that'd be their problem, because like I said, I'd judge her competent of the job. If she was only the Science Officer and not the XO, and Trip was the XO or somebody else were, some LTCDR or CDR, up to the point before she were commissioned, and then she took his place as XO, then I think your point would be more valid, but she didn't steal anybody's job because she was already there.
And there are numerous historical instances of foreign officers being granted high commissions in a military other than their own, done in with respect to the rank and esteem they hold in their own service. Lafayette himself was actually promoted from a mere Captain to a General when he came over to assist Continental forces in the Revolutionary War, and I am sure there are other examples. But, again, I can see where you'd disagree with T'Pol falling into that category if you didn't think she was a good commander.
Rigil Kent wrote:Let the Vulcans stick an officer on board a Terran vessel. This makes the Vulcans happy that the Terrans won't go do something truly stupid with the ship... which means that if something does happen to Enterprise, they'll be willing to lend a helping hand. This Vulcan also won't do any harm, but the experience level that he/she would bring to the ship will be priceless.
Except that the commanding officer basically ignored every single thing said Vulcan "suggested", so the point is moot.
At first, but not later on. I specifically remember Archer taking her advice and she acting surprised about it and he making some kind of comment that he'd learned to trust her experience... somewhere before S3.
Rigil Kent wrote:[ Yeah, Tucker wasn't fantastic initially either, but he at least got better in the Big Chair as time went on, whereas T'Pol got worse.
Like I said, I disagree. This is just to make my case for why I don't think she was that bad... She had a lot of personal problems (the character assassination that often gets discussed) which lead to her having issues with being in command, say, in parts of S3, but it would be an equivalent situation to have had Tucker in command right after Xindi and expect him to function at 100% (which he wouldn't due to his personal loss). So IMO, it wasn't that she lost the ability to command, but they threw (the writers) so much OTHER stuff at her because they weren't interested in showing her as a good commander, that it took a backseat and she was made to look unstable. That's one of the things I think a solid, stable relationship with Trip would have allowed her to do, is find her center and become again the professional that she was in the early part of the show and would, again, have been a competent commander. But there are episodes where Archer was out of commission, like in "Desert Crossing" where she did take command and I don't recall anything wrong with her performance.
I know that Starfleet is not the model of REAL command authority, but let's put it this way: I don't think she did any worse in that instance, or in the others that I regretfully can't think of and list off every one of, than any other of the XO's we've seen on other ships could have done.