# Rewatching the Jellico-Riker dynamic in "Chains of Command" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 12, 2016, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665 "2016-11-12T18:29:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/1 "2016-11-12T18:29:39Z")
Wow…with time Riker looks even worse. “I’m just going to sit in my quarters like a princess waiting to be asked.” God, Cox should have just smirked at Riker and instead of making it look so difficult to put HIS pride aside, and asked him, when Riker wanted him to ask, like “Ask? Is that what it will take to get you to prevent a war? Yeah i’ll ask. They’re just words. and I have shit to do. IMPORTANT shit” And when Riker said “You’re welcome” I’d have loved for Cox to roll his eyes and shake his head a little like "God can you believe this guy? He’s even got to get the last word. I know the second I leave he’s going to get on the Enterprise message board and crow about how he “Pwned the Captain”. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/2 "2016-11-12T19:13:00Z")
Jellico’s existence is one of those anomalies where one of the writers manages to briefly sneak some actual _military_ flavour into the show. I’m sure the offender was promptly flogged and fired. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/3 "2016-11-12T19:30:45Z")
Was that the one where Riker turned down a promotion and a chance at independent command, because he liked playing second fiddle so much instead? ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/4 "2016-11-12T19:47:09Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Jellico’s existence is one of those anomalies where one of the writers manages to briefly sneak some actual _military_ flavour into the show. Well at least by the Twentymmmphh century the Military has finally realized the obvious genius of having your most sensitive secret forces operation performed by galaxy famous, past middle aged,anthropology trained flagship captains. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/5 "2016-11-12T19:56:59Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > Well at least by the Twentymmmphh century the Military has finally realized the obvious genius of having your most sensitive secret forces operation performed by galaxy famous, past middle aged,anthropology trained flagship captains. As I recall, Phil Farrand (author of the “Nitpicker” books) described this as akin to sending Norman Schwarzkopf on a Delta Force mission. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/6 "2016-11-12T20:14:16Z")
I don’t agree with the OP. The point of the episode (well, two episode set) was not that Riker or Jellico were being entirely unreasonable in and of themselves. But they just couldn’t work together. Jellico unfairly dismissed Riker out of hand and for the most part didn’t want to listen to him, nor explain why he was making all of these arbitrary decisions. At the same time, Jellico did have reasons for making them which can at least be argued. The problem is that this put Riker into an impossible situation. The crew evidently saw very little of Jellico and he was stuck between an exhausted, pissed-off crew trying to turn the whole ship upside down, Picard going off on a suicide mission, and Jellico putting increasing demands on him. Riker jumped to carry out everything and only started getting pissed off in turn when Jellico refused to acknowledge Picard’s mission. And note, that _did_ result in Picard being tortured horribly. There’s also a somewhat subtle bit at the very beginning. Riker could, and probably should, have taken command of the Enterprise in Picard’s absence. Admiral Nechayev, however, is basically the harbinger of misery and apparently delights in attempting to piss off everyone as much as possible, while also being irrational and ineffective at the same time. She basically defines the ideal Star Trek ADmiral: simultaneously incompetent and slightly demented. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/7 "2016-11-12T20:26:21Z")
To be fair, “Admiral” is a title they give you when your PTSD and accumulated trauma from being taken over by aliens and alien parasites, experience too many transporter accidents, alien torture, memory experiments and other bizarre shit reaches the point where you can no longer act as a rational agent in command of a ship. Upon receiving your promotion to Admiral in front of the public, you are brought into a room full of Admirals all chanting “ONE OF US! ONE OF US! ONE OF US!” ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/8 "2016-11-12T20:32:03Z")
Since were touching on ST military…rather than give it its own thread, I want to point out that keeping the command crew together through a war that was going horribly wrong is one of the sillest things seen in Trek. “Riker you’re being transferred to the Aries-C as Captain” “Welll…i’m happy here.” “You’ll report to the Aries or the stockade.” ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/9 "2016-11-12T20:33:42Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > To be fair, “Admiral” is a title they give you when your PTSD and accumulated trauma from being taken over by aliens and alien parasites, experience too many transporter accidents, alien torture, memory experiments and other bizarre shit reaches the point where you can no longer act as a rational agent in command of a ship. > > Upon receiving your promotion to Admiral in front of the public, you are brought into a room full of Admirals all chanting “ONE OF US! ONE OF US! ONE OF US!” Except Admiral Kirk saved the planet several times, so Starfleet saw the wisdom in demoting him back to captain. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/10 "2016-11-12T20:52:18Z")
Right. If it turns out that you’re still able to function, they immediately demote you. “Admiral” is just a fancy word for retired. If you fuck up being a captain they promote you to a place you can’t do too much damage. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/11 "2016-11-12T21:35:44Z")
And they never show the bits where the White Shirts come out to retrieve the Admirals and take them back to their safe places. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/12 "2016-11-12T21:40:47Z")
Starfleet uses a military command structure but it isn’t Military as we understand it today. The Military is one of its functions as are Exploration and Scientific Research, all of which have equal importance. That said, Riker is kind of a dink in this episode as is Jellico but you side with Riker because you know him and like him better. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/13 "2016-11-13T01:07:06Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > Starfleet uses a military command structure but it isn’t Military as we understand it today. The Military is one of its functions as are Exploration and Scientific Research, all of which have equal importance. Well, no. They brazenly claim that Starfleet isn’t military, but military matters take immediate precedence over anything else the moment they pop up. Science and explorations are what Starfleet does when it’s not on its principle mission about defense. It’d be exactly like the Navy claiming the same thing, since it doesn’t actually spend 100% of the time fighting people. Sure, they do research and exploration in peacetime, but that’s not really role that takes precedence. Starfleet is a uniformed, armed service that acts as the sole armed force branch of the Federation. Its officers are subject to courts martial, and they hand out phasers to the science nerds when there’s fighting to be done\*. Just because it does a couple other things as well does not mean it’s not military. \*Which might be why nobody seems to respect them. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/14 "2016-11-13T03:18:03Z")
They’re still not a very good military. OK, ignore all of the deep technical flaws about how they apparently don’t have any weapons with a size in-between rifle-like phasers and, you know, orbital bombardment, or how they apparently don’t have dedicated warships until the _Defiant_ is created. No, let’s go with staffing. They have smart, non-sentient AI they refuse to use for combat. In fact, let me repeat that, then I’ll fire for effect: _ **They have smart, non-sentient AI they refuse to use for combat.** _ Nobody treats the ship AI as a character. Data is a character. Data had multiple episodes devoted to just how much of a character he was. But the ship AI is treated as just as much of a piece of furniture as any other piece of the ship. Multiple ships have been destroyed and nobody mourns the ship AIs when that happens. We know the AIs are capable of performing complex analyses without a lot of hand-holding, and the fact they’re incapable of independent thought is a distinct bonus when you plan on sending them to their destruction. Hell, the various _Enterprise_ crews have seen whole planets run by AI, and they’ve never treated those AIs as impossibly advanced, _or_ as actual sentient beings on a par with crew members. An AI that can run a planet can fight a war, as evidenced by the fact beings incapable of running a planet single-handedly can fight a war. (My country’s military is my cite.) _Not_ using AIs (and relatively simple AIs by their apparent, observed standards!) to fight is condemning sentient beings to fight and die, which most analyses of the Federation would conclude that the average Federation citizen would likely regard as a Bad Thing. Yes, I understand the story reasons. Mentioning them is dull, harping on them is worse than dull. I’m just kind of surprised nobody seems to bring this up. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/15 "2016-11-13T04:57:00Z")
Remember, Star Trek is a post-scarcity society. People have jobs just because they want to have jobs. Which means that folks in the military are there just because they want to fight wars. So when they get a war, they can’t just leave those people disappointed-- They probably have a constitutionally-guaranteed right to do the job they want. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/16 "2016-11-13T05:11:23Z")
[Why Captain Jellico Is Actually Pretty Awesome](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09TySF0FN6Y) ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/17 "2016-11-13T05:23:44Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > [Why Captain Jellico Is Actually Pretty Awesome](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09TySF0FN6Y) Thats what inspired my post. As for AI fighting a war…cmon. You leave a toaster on too long in the Federation and it becomes sentient. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/18 "2016-11-13T06:14:22Z")
Now picture Jellico as Captain in the first episode of VOYAGER. _“So, we’re back.”_ ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/19 "2016-11-13T07:00:13Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > [Why Captain Jellico Is Actually Pretty Awesome](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09TySF0FN6Y) Yeah, this guy articulates perfectly exactly what I’ve thought since I first saw this episode when I was around 10. Riker was a smug dick the whole time, refused to do his job, and should have been court-martialed for insubordination. He seemed to have no conception of the fact that they were _in the middle of a fucking emergency_ and the crew of his Club Med in Space might actually have to work hard for a few days and there isn’t time for the luxury of a let’s-get-to-know-our-new-CO-and-his-command-style-with-fun-games-and-skits HR event in Ten-Forward. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665/20 "2016-11-13T12:43:06Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > In fact, let me repeat that, then I’ll fire for effect: _ **They have smart, non-sentient AI they refuse to use for combat.** _ > > […] > > Yes, I understand the story reasons. Mentioning them is dull, harping on them is worse than dull. I’m just kind of surprised nobody seems to bring this up. It’s not story reasons. It’s just how the tech works. The computers are inherently always inferior to humans, unless they are sentient. This is a discrepancy with the real world, but it’s how it works in their universe. And I don’t think that’s dull. It’s interesting both in-universe (why would it be that way–maybe because our computer revolution didn’t happen?) and out-of-universe: why must we have machines that can’t outdo humans? Only if they use them like calculators is it okay for them to be better. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rewatching-the-jellico-riker-dynamic-in-chains-of-command/771665.md?page=2)