All-Star Crew

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Alex
Pegasus Fleet CO
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All-Star Crew

Post by Alex » Wed Aug 17, 2016 10:26 pm

I was listening to a podcast today at work, and they played a little game to put together their all-star starship crew. The way it worked is that they have a set list of positions that they are looking to fill: medical officer, wildcard, rookie ensign, security officer, chief engineer, science officer, first officer, and of course captain.

The rules are pretty simple. The selected members of the crew can be from any of the five Star Trek series that have been released so far, and since some of the characterizations are a bit different, they included the Kelvin universe crew as separate from the TOS crew. The crew are not limited to Starfleet officers, and as they ended up doing on the podcast, the crew doesn’t necessarily even have to be one of the “main” cast. Most of the crew positions are pretty self explanatory. For the sake of argument, science officer could also include operations. The rookie ensign must be a young character of ensign rank. Naturally all of the other officers were ensigns at one time, but here we’re interested in the character who is most known for being the newbie. And finally, the wildcard is for that one character that you’d like to have for any reason, either to fill a spot on the ship that isn’t already listed (counselor, cook, bartender, etc.) or just because they are someone that you think should be around. The assumption for each of these characters is that they are when they are in their prime, though I suppose if you liked a character from a certain portion of their character arc, then you should mention it. (Example: young Kirk vs. old Kirk)

I’ll start things off my going through my crew list, along with my reasoning for choosing that crew. I may catch some flak for some of these, but that’s the fun of the debate and discussion.

Medical Officer:
This one was actually a bit tricky for me. I think all of the doctors on Star Trek were great, though admittedly Crusher tended to be the least interesting. I think Crusher is a great character, and Gates McFadden was great, but the writers didn’t always give her enough to do. Bashir is one of my favorite characters, and his genetic enhancements make him an even better doctor. Plus I think he has one of the better bedside manners.I very nearly went with McCoy, and on my first pass I did. He just seems like the type of doctor that I wouldn’t mind having a drink with. But ultimately I went with the EMH from Voyager. He is a walking encyclopedia, so he knows everything that all of the other doctors know. He’s a bit cynical (okay, maybe more than a bit), but that’s very much like McCoy. I’d say that he was easily my favorite Voyager character, and therefore my pick for chief medical officer.

Wildcard:
This one came to me pretty quickly. One of the people on the podcast made a pretty compelling argument for Shran, but I have to go with Garak. Maybe he doesn’t have a real role on the ship, but as a character he’s just one of my favorites from any series. There are good arguments for other wildcards, but Garak was a easy pick for me.

Rookie Ensign:
One of the podcasters actually struggled between the same two ensigns that I considered, though ultimately went with the one I didn’t pick. But it was still interesting to hear that she had the same thought process as me. I first considered Ensign Ro Laren. Ro was a great character, and one that I would have liked to have seen developed further. But I feel that her personality would have been too similar with another character I chose, which incidentally that similarity was the reason she picked Ro on the podcast. But my choice for the Rookie Ensign was Nog. I always thought that he was a great character, and we got to see him grow a lot over the course of seven years. He was fun, interesting, and showed signs of becoming quite the competent officer by the end of the war. So I had to go with him.

Security Officer:
This one was actually my toughest. There are so many great options. I was torn for a while between Odo and Worf. Both are great characters with interesting stories, but I was leaning towards Odo as far as his abilities being an asset. But ultimately I decided to go with Tuvok. I was convinced during the discussion on the podcast to go with Tuvok because as a Vulcan he will tend to be very level-headed during a crisis, which is a very valuable quality to have for chief of security.

Chief Engineer:
The easy choice for chief engineer would be Scotty. Afterall, he was known as the miracle worker. I love all of the engineers, even more so since Star Trek was one of the inspirations for me pursuing engineering as a career, so I tended to relate to all of them well. Geordi was great, and seemed like he would be a good friend. Torres was also a great character, and easily the best female character on Voyager (I love the idea of Janeway, and Kate Mulgrew is fantastic, but the writers had her too much all over the place in my opinion). But as an engineer she’s probably at the bottom of the list. O’brien is a very talented engineer, and one of my favorite characters, but I had to go with Charles “Trip” Tucker III. Trip was easily my favorite character on Enterprise, and as one of the earliest Starfleet engineers, he invented a lot of the stuff that Scotty later perfected. He always felt the most like the hands on mechanic, though O’Brien was pretty close. Not even counting “These Are the Voyages…”, I always felt like Trip would rather go in and fix something himself rather than send someone else into a dangerous situation. So he’s my pick for engineer.

Science Officer:
There are a lot of great science officers to choose from. Spock is an easy choice, and Jadzia was pretty great too. But to me it was no contest. I’d have to go with Data. Not only is a walking encyclopedia, he was one of my favorite TNG characters. His character arc of wanting to be more human was great, and seeing the way he developed over the years was heartwarming. There really wasn’t much debate for me on this one.

First Officer:
I pretty much had this one between two. My first thought was Riker. He had a lot of Kirk-like qualities, but over the years rounded off. But I think the same could be said about my choice for first officer. This person had a lot of fiery tendencies, and early on was probably difficult to get along with. But over time, the character grew to be more embracing of other cultures, and could offer many different viewpoints that my captain may not have considered. I think the two of them together, given time, would make a great, or at least interesting, pair. So that’s why for my first officer I went with Kira Nerys.

Captain:
There’s so much to be said about all of the different captains, and Star Trek has produced some great ones. There are qualities about each of them that I like, and some qualities that I don’t like. Picking this one seems like it would be difficult, but for me it was easy. I pretty much started with my captain, and then decided who I thought would work well with him. I had to go with the captain that I knew first, and the one that I grew up with. I had to go with Jean Luc Picard. To me, Picard was always the best captain because he embodied the best of all of the other captains. He was an explorer. He was a diplomat. He was a tactician. In a crisis, if he couldn’t talk you down then he’d be sure to remind you why history would never forget the name Enterprise. The other captains shared a lot of these traits, but in my opinion not to the same extent that Picard exemplified them. Now, would someone like Picard put up with someone like Kira? She and Sisko certainly had their moments early on, and I think Kira and Sisko are alike in a lot of ways. I definitely see Picard as a father to his men, someone that they look up to and respect. Kira might not respect him at first, but I think he would put her in her place. But unlike Sisko or Kirk, Picard could do it without having to raise his voice. I always thought Picard and Riker worked well together, but for the most part Riker was more of a follower. He would follow Picard to the end of the universe and back. I think Kira would too, but she’d let her opinion be known. And I think that Kira’s background being so different from Picard’s would help him make better decisions. Overall, I think Picard is the most versatile of the captains. Kirk and Sisko are very good at what they do, and Archer gets special mention for being one of the first to be in that kind of position. I think Janeway could have been great, had the writers been more consistent with her character. But she was still an explore first and foremost. No matter what mission you give Picard, he has the necessary skills to pull it off.

So in summary, here is my all-star starship crew:

Medical Officer: Voyager EMH
Wildcard: Elim Garak
Rookie Ensign: Nog
Security Officer: Tuvok
Chief Engineer: Charles Tucker III
Science Officer: Data
First Officer: Kira Nerys
Captain: Jean Luc Picard

So how close was I to your all-star crew? Do you agree with my choices? Do you think that I’m just completely wrong? Can you do better? Let’s see what everyone else can come up with.
Fleet Admiral Emily Quinn
Commanding Officer
11th 'Pegasus' Fleet

Fleet Captain Liarra Von
Commanding Officer
Starbase 332

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