TNG - Best of Both Worlds

[Madner Kami]

It's a flagship in the sense that, as the Borg commented, it's "the strongest ship," the flag-bearer of the nation and its power structure and mission and goal and interests.

And this colloquial use of the term bears no relevance to what we were talking about.

[Artabax]

In regular Navy, it is common for 2nd in command to be promoted to Captain of their own ship. TPTB could have just ignored this, but, no, they have to make a big deal of Ryker it's all about me refusing promotion.

It ignores the practical reaction to someone effectively destroying their career and climb up the ladder of seniority: A person like that would be reassigned to some ass end assignment with no further prospects offered to them in any way because such a choice both hurts the navy and hurts that person.
A big issue that always pissed me off in Trek is the assumption that officers could have their choice of where they want to be, and if someone like Kirk is happy being a captain of a starship, he could refuse promotion and just keep puttering around space without consequence. It effectively means throwing a wrench into the gears of the machine that is Star Trek preventing a new up coming CO from taking over from him while depriving Star Fleet of someone with command experience to at the very least come back home and help train others even if he's not worth flag rank and greater assignments as an admiral.

I counter that with the Peter principle. Suppose you got someone who is excellent as 2iC, but would be a liability in command, then you make him 2iC of the bestest ship in the Galaxy.

2iC - 2nd in Command

Ryker refuses Captaincy because directive that 2iC gets to shag the Green space Babes.

[Yukaphile]

Actually, Mike Wong, again, citing him, says it's comparable to a small army unit. I forgot where. Want the link?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Kirk never commands more vessels than just Enterprise in any of these movies. As said, a flagship is a ship of a given fleet, where the commanding officer for that fleet is currently stationed (raises his flag). So Enterprise is not a flagship in any of these cases.

Yeah I did catch that, but it's just funny that he was admiral on the Enterprise. And you did say that admiral or commodores designate a flagship so to speak. I also understand that there are only a handful of instances where Enterprise is flagship, but I have heard it described as such anyway.

That being said, I wasn't hinging what I said before on it being a technical flagship, but undoubtedly being of the most notable and prestigious ships in Starfleet. It's the most esteemed ship, incredibly huge, that goes out into the yonder.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I'm more willing to forgive the static ranks in the TOS era. In some ways, Starfleet in that era comes across more like Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery. Kirk himself is more like a great explorer, a Magellan or Columbus, at least as they exist in the popular imagination. He's a trailblazer.

By the movie era, this doesn't really apply anymore. Certainly by the TNG era they aren't spending nearly as much time on "the edge of frontier" where a looser structure can be excused because only a handful of people are qualified for the job.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Well Picard was chosen for his military tactics wasn't he?

[Madner Kami]

And you did say that admiral or commodores designate a flagship so to speak.

If the admiral commands a fleet from that ship (and that ship is part of said fleet), it is a flagship. However, the mere presence of an admiral on a ship, even if the admiral is in command of the ship*, does not make the ship a flag-ship.

*To an extend one could even say, an admiral never commands a single ship. Flag-officers are fleet-commanders. Flag-officers do not commandeer ships, flag-officers comandeer captains (plural!).

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

And you did say that admiral or commodores designate a flagship so to speak.

If the admiral commands a fleet from that ship (and that ship is part of said fleet), it is a flagship. However, the mere presence of an admiral on a ship, even if the admiral is in command of the ship*, does not make the ship a flag-ship.

*To an extend one could even say, an admiral never commands a single ship. Flag-officers are fleet-commanders.

Yep. So Enterprise isn't classified as a flagship, which wouldn't matter anyway, though has deliberately acted as such by order of top administration as first reasonable choice on several occasions.

[Yukaphile]

Well, Starfleet is treated as one big "fleet," and flagship is an easy-to-use word.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

And whether it is or isn't a flag ship isn't integral to my point.

Well, Starfleet is treated as one big "fleet," and flagship is an easy-to-use word.

No, I'll agree that it's fair to dismiss the notion of it being a flagship. But what a flagship precisely is or isn't was somewhat inconsequential as far as my concern. Or even as far as Madner holds.