SancheztheWhaler wrote:You misunderstand - my point is not that Bligh was an incompetent who drove his crew to mutiny because he cruelly abused them (historical records show that he was in fact a surprisingly lenient commander compared to some of his counterparts), but rather that you don't promote commanders after debacles such as mutiny, crashing ships on rocks, collisions, or getting lost on the other side of the galaxy. Rather, Bligh was court martialed (and acquitted), and then continued his career. Had he been convicted, he likely would have been imprisoned and his career ended.
What that proves is that you do not promote commanders after a disaster
unless their behavior passes inspection. If we could look more closely at the context in which Janeway passed inspection, I'd expect to find a politically motivated board of investigation that wound up dropping most of the charges for one reason or another, to the point where Janeway's career could continue in the same way that Bligh's did, regardless of whether she
deserved to have it continue.
Possibilities:
-Janeway has 'interest': she is related to prominent Starfleet officers, or to someone those officers owe a favor.
-Janeway is a media darling on the 24th century Federation's version of the Internet to the point where even a competent Admiralty doesn't want to have to put up with all the crap it would take for refusing to promote her, let alone cashiering her.
-Janeway's after action report is heavily falsified, with the crew collectively agreeing to keep its mouth shut and keep the official record clean because it makes ALL of them look like idiots. There may be scary "no shit" rumors bouncing around the fleet about how hopelessly messed up the entire Delta Quadrant Trek* really was, but nobody admits it for the record.
*"Trek" is, I think, a uniquely appropriate word for what they were doing. Voyager was more legitimately about a "wagon train to the stars" than any other series in the setting, because the ship had to operate much farther from base and with a much more distant destination.
Starglider wrote:Sisko planned and personally led the invasion of Cardassian space, not to mention the operation to retake the station, while at the rank of captain. How that works with the chain of command I don't know, but the Federation doesn't seem to be as strict about matching command level to rank (and vice versa) as real world militaries. Regardless, I can only assume that it would've been difficult to replace Sisko due to the Bajorans bitching about losing their Emissary, but that Federation internal politics blocked a Janeway-style speed promotion to the admiralty.
Does Starfleet have a rank of "Commodore"? If not, they may use a system similar to the Napoleonic British one, in which a 'commodore' is a captain who has been given command of a squadron without being promoted to permanent flag rank. Commodore was a title, not a rank, and commodores often commanded small squadrons or naval bases. This allowed the Admiralty to create a clear chain of command ("
Captain Commodore Aubrey is in charge") without having to increase the already badly inflated population of admirals.
Thus, faced with a political dilemma, Starfleet may have made Sisko commodore in command of the invasion of Cardassian space as the best available option. Or, if they use an American-like system, breveted him to commodore without it drawing much (if any) attention on-screen.
Batman wrote:Janeway knew everything about every job on her ship EXCEPT HERS. A Captain doesn't NEED to know those jobs. That's what the people DOING those jobs are there for.
"Promoted to her level of incompetence," then? Maybe she did a pretty good job at lower rank, then fell apart when dropped in a command chair and put in a situation far beyond the bounds of normal Starfleet experience...
