Who is the worst Captain?

[MissKittyFantastico]

I haven't looked this up, but I believe somewhere (either In The Beginning or that episode somewhere around season five or something where Delenn had her flashback to the whole thing) they mentioned that the Minbari had the weapons powered down, but their scanners were so powerful they caused a white-out on the EA ships' sensors and they couldn't tell the ports were open but the guns were cold.

It feels a bit convoluted - to be honest, I always felt like the gun ports thing was something that slipped through with nobody happening to question it the day it was written, and they were stuck with by the time someone said "Hang on..." and had to just justify and shore it up as best they could after the fact. The notion of misreading a cultural signal as a threat works just fine, that's a great story idea, but that specific example kind of makes the Minbari look like morons, and adding on more layers of explanation draws attention to the problem even as it tries to smooth it over. Having Dukhat get a light bulb above his head and run off shouting "Close 'em! Close 'em up again!" really raises the question of why nobody else in the history of Minbar ever thought it through.

I kind of wonder if it isn't also a holdover from 'early B5', when - my impression, at least - the aliens were a lot more alien. After five seasons we've come to know the Minbari pretty well, and apart from having the occasional odd tradition and honour code if they feel like it, they're not really that different to us. Back in season one... well, you have G'Kar asking how an ant would explain him, but a few years later the First Ones that were so mysterious back then are essentially just one more funny-looking ship in Sheridan's rag-tag fleet, however 'unknowable' they allegedly are in their free time. It doesn't feel anymore like a galaxy where we're just little ants who don't get the big picture.

[thisithis]

Yeah, I've been doing a watch over the past year of the Stargate franchise, after videos on them kept popping up on this site and I was curious what it was about, and Atlantis... seems like it's SG-1's evil twin. SG-1 was great comfort food for dealing with depression; the tone was light, the characters were fun, and there was never any doubt that everything would always work out in the end. Even SG-1's biggest fails usually led to a positive outcome overall, like Sam's screwup with trusting RepliCarter directly leading to the defeat of both the Goa'uld and the Replicators. Atlantis... is the opposite of that. Every seeming win turns out to be a fail that makes things worse than they already were. The whole show reminds me of a fake "horoscope" I read in the Onion once: A curse will turn out to be a blessing in disguise, until the blessing turns out to be an even bigger curse in an even more convincing disguise.

It doesn't help that I can't ever seem to figure out what Atlantis's mission statement is supposed to be. SG-1's was straightforward; the team explored the galaxy, looking for allies against the Goa'uld, as well as new technology. They indeed did make new friends, and acquire new technology, and eventually liberated the galaxy from the Goa'uld, resulting in a safer Earth and a better galaxy. Atlantis, though... it seems they occupied the city, in order to defend the city, which only needs defending because they occupied the city. What is Earth or the SGC supposed to be actually getting from this?

I have nothing against SG-1 or Atlantis. The worst will always be Matthew Marcus of Exosquad. Nothing beats watching a man mutiny and getting half his own men killed and then blowing himself up with the main flagship and help the enemy get more ground on Earth, Mars, and Venus. But that's just me. The worst StarGate show that Chuck has not gotten to yet, and that would be Stargate Universe.

Hard to name who was the worst in Universe, because everybody except two characters where all idiots. The black guy with mental problems showed that he had a brain, as well as the kid hacker who at lest showed he had some brains in his head. When the not so well trained scientist decided to revolt against the well trained marines, the kid at lest got up and ran to the Marines and said I'm on your side. At lest he knew how one sided that fight was going to be.

[CareerKnight]

In the end I think the best thing would to consider what I think would be an interest scenario for a Stargate reboot and how it would develop from the opening: It's 1942 and with the Afrika Korp closing on El Alamein only to find British resistance has crumbled, a Stargate opened inside the Pyramid of Giza by a Goa'uld that remembered Earth was around still and decided to reconquer it. The Brits are now torn between two fronts in Egypt with the Germans and Italians realizing what the real threat is and that they have to work together to prevent an invasion of Earth that also results in WWII ending with an abrupt white peace once the invasion is contain and driven back.

Fast forward to the 60s when it's felt that Earth needs to venture out and see what threats are out there, only now the Great Powers are all pushing to send their teams out also include those colourful nations like Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy.

There already is a Scifi story that is basically about this, minus any connection to Stargate. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/L ... e/Worldwar

Nah, on the contrary, it was stupid in the extreme for Minbari first contact to have the weapons run out and targeting alien ships as a ''sign of honor'' that in NO WAY could be construed as ''Oh shit, they are going to open fire on us.''

JMS often found it amusing that people would demand aliens act alien and then complain when they couldn't understand alien reasoning. This actually wasn't one of those cases however as apparently this isn't too different from how real life navies use to act centuries ago. In fact they would even goes so far as to fire their guns in salute (they would be blanks but still). Tell me that wouldn't have caused problems if they had encounter another civilization not familiar with the custom.

I always had the impression (though I could be wrong) that the Alliance ships were ton-for-ton far superior to anything the Empire fielded. A Mon Calimari Cruiser would, in a straight up fight, rip the face off a Star Destroyer. The Corellian Corvette design was ancient by the time of the original trilogy, but it still seemed able to put up a pretty good fight.

Even if its not true for capital ships, almost certainly the fighter craft of the Alliance were orders of magnitude better than the Imperial TIE Fighters.

Speaking as an avid Tie Fighter player back in the day, I can say that the Imperials and the Rebels are acting under radically different doctrines. Star Destroyers are slightly older designs that were built to kill enemy capital ships and perform bombardments. The problem is that fighters are becoming increasingly important during the original trilogy and the Empire for the most part isn't keeping up (It's kindof like a ww1 navy being asked to take on a ww2 navy). They can take a Mon Cal cruiser, especially at long range, in a one on one fight but it will never get to fight that battle because of the fighters both ships carry. The Mon Cal cruisers, on the other hand, were made with fighter defense a much higher consideration so their a lot more dangerous for smaller craft to engage.

Imperial fighters like the TIE Fighter and Interceptor are basically seen as expendable (because hey we control the galaxy so so what if our pilots die a lot) and so are no where near as durable as what the rebels rely on. Not to say they're completely worthless as they are a lot more maneuverable to the point that it some times doesn't matter that they don't have little things... like shields.

[Beastro]

JMS often found it amusing that people would demand aliens act alien and then complain when they couldn't understand alien reasoning. This actually wasn't one of those cases however as apparently this isn't too different from how real life navies use to act centuries ago. In fact they would even goes so far as to fire their guns in salute (they would be blanks but still). Tell me that wouldn't have caused problems if they had encounter another civilization not familiar with the custom.

It's not even alien, things like that are in human cultures throughout history.

Look back to Anglo Saxon culture in the early Middle Ages and you'll see they were BIG on their weapons (it's where Americans get their love of firearms) to the point where it wasn't a proper business negotiation unless everyone had one within reach.

That seems the complete opposite to how we view negotiation today, that having people weaponless reduces the chance of arguments flaring into violence, but for the Anglo Saxons a person was not respectable unless he carried a weapon, and so if equals were to do business in a respectable manner they had to bring weapons and show their character by not using them.

[Maximara]

Nazi Captain America.

Zing!

I'm torn between Janeway and Archer... Janeway has some glimpses of actual leadership and competence, but is still a hazardous person to work for, by, and against. Archer lacks Janeway's glimpses of quality, but I'm not sure he was as bad in terms of impact on those around him.

Archer comes off as the blind leading the blinder. "It's such a bad idea you'd swear that Lucas was involved" - "The U.S.S. Make Shit Up (BiTrektual Version)" Voltaire

[thisithis]

Archer comes off as the blind leading the blinder. "It's such a bad idea you'd swear that Lucas was involved" - "The U.S.S. Make Shit Up (BiTrektual Version)" Voltaire

I didn't like Archer But at lest he didn't straight up attack the enemy two times both hurting the fleet, like Matthew Marcus. Of course the second time Marcus losses his life as well as the main flagship, leaving the whole fleet to go make a desperate deal with the pirates to save humanity.

[CareerKnight]

It's not even alien

"This actually wasn't one of those cases"

Look back to Anglo Saxon culture in the early Middle Ages and you'll see they were BIG on their weapons (it's where Americans get their love of firearms) to the point where it wasn't a proper business negotiation unless everyone had one within reach.

That seems the complete opposite to how we view negotiation today, that having people weaponless reduces the chance of arguments flaring into violence, but for the Anglo Saxons a person was not respectable unless he carried a weapon, and so if equals were to do business in a respectable manner they had to bring weapons and show their character by not using them.

Another good example of how strange just past cultures can seem.

[StrangeDevice]

Another good example of how strange just past cultures can seem.

And not just past cultures. During a showing of a Japanese film called "A Silent Voice", you had a small handful of people throughout the theatre laughing when two of the characters got down on their hands and knees, bowing their head in apology. The looks they got from people who understood the custom were almost hateful, they weren't Japanese themselves but they thought the reaction was deeply disrespectful. Kind of like if someone were to laugh at how someone held their hands in prayer. Similarly, one character kicks off his shoes before entering the apartment, despite another standing on the edge of the balcony outside about to jump. These are alien customs that exist now and that you can partake in a current social context without the distance of history as well.

It's why I always look a bit confused when people say that aliens aren't acting like they expect. Well, yes... Even human beings across different cultures don't act like we expect. How do you think a different species is going to react? If we're lucky, it's almost exactly like us, but more often than not, it won't be. The Mimbari are humanised as the series goes on because that's how the writer gets you to sympathise with them, by adding traits you can correlate as to being "positive" or "relatable" in human terms.

[Nessus]

Janeway actually did seem consistent to me (albeit in an obviously unintentional way). She comes across to me as someone who thinks of herself as a person of iron principle and resolve, but is actually someone who's constantly "reinterpreting" those principles in the moment to justify her impulses. So externally, she has no consistent principles, but if asked, she always has some contorted lawyer excuse for why the thing she's doing is actually totally a direct product of the same iron principles she's always held... even if last week she was doing the opposite with a completely contradictory excuse.

That's a terrible kind of person to have in power, but unfortunately a very realistic personality type. And I can imagine someone like that making it through a career simply by virtue of never having been in a situation where those tendencies would be brought to light before her superiors. It might take some degree of coincidence, but I can imagine her career going fine before her assignment to Voyager, simply because she never "lucked" into the sort of situations Kirk or Picard or Sisko often had to deal with, where that kind of intellectual dishonesty would cause noticeable conflict. Up until that point, she'd only dealt with relatively by-the-book stuff that although it might be serious, didn't require much actual debate, so as long as she did it competently and confidently, she got high marks.

Archer, however, always came of as clearly incompetent. I started out with an impression of "O.k., I don't see why everyone thinks this guys rready for command, he doesn't seem very experienced or compelling", and quickly ramped up to "Holy Fuck! This guy is dangerously, ACTIVELY stupid! You could grab a random person of the street and as bad as they'd be, they'd STILL they'd be a better leader and a WAY better diplomat than him", which by extension made Starfleet look so OTT crosseyed stupid as to have no place in a non-comedic setting. In order to think Archer is a good captain or diplomat you'd have to be dumber than him.

...Which by extension, cast the same implication over the writers/producers.

[Durandal_1707]

Okay then, the contest is: Worse diplomat. Jonathan Archer or Col. Jack O'Neill?