Switch the Captains (just a game/debate)

spy8446

A thought came to me one day, what would have happened if we switched the captain with another (character not actor)
How would Picard have handled the Delta quad, Kirk DS9 etc. (Leaving TRIBBLE out because they had too many)

How would they have handled the different challenges/episodes.

Pick an episode from any show and a Captain from a different one (Archer included) and explain how they would handle that ship and crew in it.

Enterprise - Silent enemy - Picard.

I think that Picard would handle the encounter generally the same, except with a cup of Earl Gray.
Though I am unsure if he would have stopped firing on the enemy ship that was clearly a threat to them, I think he might also let it go ultimately like Archer did but with a few more hits.

Agree or Disagree?

rattler2

Discovery had two main captains, Lorca and Pike, and people actually liked Pike. So I'd say you could include at least them.

As for the situation...
Picard would try to handle the situation with diplomacy, but as soon as that failed, he would do everything in his power to protect the ship and crew. And if he was in command of the NX-01 with the knowledge he has when commanding the Ent-D or E... we might even see the Picard Maneuver to outflank the enemy ship. The NX class is smaller than the Stargazer, and the main limiting factor for not using it on the Enterprise-D was size to stress ratio. Smaller ships could pull it off no problem.

So yea... I'd say Picard would more or less follow Archer's approach.

phoenixc

The biggest problem would be the shift to powering ship's weapons from the warp mains that started in the early 2270s which made fighting in warp impractical. It would not be a very big stumbling block though since on each side of the divide they would at least have theoretical knowledge of the opposite doctrine (DSC is an outlier with their warp drive that acts more like Star Wars hyperspace then Star Trek warp).

Also, two captains (Archer and Kirk) were from a transition period, with Archer not even knowing warp combat was possible until getting warp strafed by the Suliban but engaging in warpspeed combat a few years later after Malcomb Reed figured out how to balance the phases between warp engines, weapons, and shields to make it possible for the NX to do it. Kirk started off with combat at warp speeds but was one of the pioneers of the new slow slugfest doctrine on the refit Enterprise.

Style wise they had three hawks (Kirk, Janeway, and Lorca (if you include DSC and their anomalous warp drive behavior), several doves (Picard, Archer, Pike, and Georgiou), and one pragmatic not that did not fit with either (Sisko).

Kirk and Janeway are pretty much interchangeable, though Lorca is a bit far out even for a hawk. Likewise the doves are pretty much interchangeable too. Oddly, if pushed into a corner Sisko and Lorca are fairly similar though under normal circumstances they are not much alike.

spy8446

Just to clear up some things.

1: My count of TRIBBLE caps is 4. JoJo, Lorca, Pike and Seru. Though only 3 were the caps of the same ship, Jojo was still a cap for a few eps, I think enough that we got a good understanding of her personality and style.

2: The captain does not have to have knowledge of their own universe, its more about their personality and style, you can use either method though.

fallenkezef

I would be genuinely curious how each of the captains would handle my personal favourite episode, the ToS Balance of Terror.

phoenixc

That is complex, but assuming that they are all TOS versions of the characters (to eliminate the differing tech factor):

Of the hawkish captains Janeway is the closest to Kirk so she would probably play it out the same way. They are both primarily a trickster archetype and focus on the opposing person, and not so much the tech. Also, they both depend on intuition more than calculation, though Kirk leans more towards a typical grifter pattern, goes deep, and tends to reuse what works, while Janeway has a more capricious, shallower snap decision style that is harder to anticipate even when you know her general style.

Riker is totally different, much more straightforward than Kirk or Janeway. He is no stranger to misdirection, but it usually is not his first choice which makes sense since despite being affable enough he is not really a people person (he is a bit like Picard in that way, though not as strongly) and tends to fight tech-to-tech.

Riker's style is very much thought driven (another similarity to Picard) and focused on historical knowledge, so he is not as likely to pull the shadowing trick unless he is as versed in submarine warfare history as he is starship combat. Even if he does he is not as patient as Kirk so I have the feeling he would go for a more mobile style, perhaps the kind of shadow-then-break tactic used in "The Enemy Below" of attack runs timed to play on psychological factors (which also saves some of the strain on the phasers) provided his studies in tactics included something similar. He may even try alternate methods of sensing the ship like Picard would likely do though he is not quite as science-minded as Picard.

Lorca would probably go for very aggressive tactics like a constant barrage. Assuming he made the same sort of modifications to Enterprise that his DSC version made to Discovery he would probably have had the phaser systems beefed up to the point that they wouldn't have failed and would have pounded the Romulan ship to death over the course of a single long chase engagement. Practical and direct, but not very entertaining story-wise since the majority of motivations happen outside of the episode and depend on a long arc tied to the mirror universe.

Of the doves:

Picard is a scientist first an foremost, who happens to have a knack for tactics on the side. He would be very analytic and would quickly devise experiments to test the situation and the limits of the cloak in order to refine location data. The main sensors only gave a general position for the Romulan ship, and Picard would probably take advantage of the warp drive to triangulate those readings.

He would probably add other things like optical or broad spectrum parallax readings on the stars behind the suspected target area to try and catch distortions that might pinpoint the ship, sending out probes or perhaps even shuttles to get more "eyes" on the problem, and may even try "feeling" around with the main deflector to see if it can touch the ship (it was invisible but still had mass) and maybe even with tractors if they got close enough. He would also tend to lay down particle fields or beams to see if they react with the cloak.

Also, Picard would keep the warp drives spun up on the highest level possible under the circumstances to use the Picard effect at a moments notice to confuse the Romulan captain with false images if possible (or at least be able to change position very quickly since it was unlikely the Romulans would be familiar with fighting ships capable of high warp speeds and it may keep the warbird captain off balance). Of note is that Picard is the captain most likely to figure out that the Romulans use a singularity power source with his tests and possibly find a way to use it against them.

Archer and Pike are rather similar in that they are charismatic people-person types like Kirk and Janeway, but not tricksters by nature. They sort of fall in the middle, not as intuition/feeling based as Kirk and Janeway but also not as straight out thinkers as Picard and Riker. They both tend to look at and find ways to act on the situation instead of the opposing people or technology. Of the two, Archer is more of a lead by example type whereas Pike is more of a direct from the middle captain so his style actually depends almost as much on the people he surrounds himself with as it does his own natural style.

That general style does not immediately suggest what tactics they would use, though I get the feeling they would probably try to arrange their attacks with an eye to keeping the enemy ship trapped on the Federation side of the border and forcing it to "surface" to fight once they find negotiation attempts are ignored by the Romulans.

There is too little shown of Georgiou to draw many conclusions, just hints that she tends to play the long game and that despite having been in some sort of intense brush war at some point she is still rather ivory tower. How that would apply here I have no idea.

As for the outlier, Sisko is a bit broody and not a people person by nature. He tends to look for loopholes and workarounds and gets quite creative instead of relying on what worked for others. In fact, while he is in some ways closest to Kirk and Janeway, his tricks are a way giving the finger to convention rather than a kind of competition the way the other two do. In the case of "Balance of Terror", I think he would do the same stalking game that Kirk and Janeway would, all the time pondering the best way to capture or kill the enemy ship and waiting for an opening to put his plans into action. I also think he would have less qualms about chasing the warbird into the neutral zone as long as he judged that killing it in plain view on their front lawn would send the message to the Romulans that they would regret messing with the Federation.