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John Harriman who was he?
disposeableh3r0
Member Posts: 1,927 Arc User
in Ten Forward
https://screenrant.com/star-trek-generations-captain-harriman-worst-how/amp/
Stumbled upon this little stub article today. I remember when I saw the movie I assumed he was a yard captain, in command during the construction but not destined to be the captain on missions.
Thoughts?
Stumbled upon this little stub article today. I remember when I saw the movie I assumed he was a yard captain, in command during the construction but not destined to be the captain on missions.
Thoughts?
As a time traveller, Am I supposed to pack underwear or underwhen?
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
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The ones against him are probably fairly obvious: had to ask some veterans to fix things for him, got Kirk killed amongst other reasons.
Against that, you can say that he put aside his pride and asked for help despite dozens of pairs of eyes watching him, including those of the press. Also, Kirk insisted to go to the Deflector area - before that, Harriman was willing to go.
Besides these two immediate refutations, there's also to consider that Harriman got a ship that was poorly equipped and under-staffed (there were no nurses for example).
Of course, detractors could argue that any real captain would have insisted on his ship being properly finished before leaving spacedock. Still, given the circumstances, there wasn't much else he could've done.
He didn't have endless supplies of torpedoes like Janeway had, no super android to come up with a great solution.
His ship didn't seem to have the Defiant's plot armour, nor did he have any allies tracking him through a vortex when they were most badly needed like Archer had.
Perhaps most crucial: copy pasting of fleets hadn't been invented yet.
He did pretty well, given all that. His people skills were also quite good. He recognised that Kirk (Kirk, not Shatner of course) didn't want to be the at centre of attention so whenever the press would focus on him, he made sure to intervene.
Everyone except the heroes (ok, bar a few exceptions like admiral Hayes, captain Jellico and captain Hernandez to name a few) has to be corrupt or incompetent. So that the heroes are less corrupt and more competent.
Overall, I'd say that it's not Harriman's fault. I kind of liked him. Too bad he and his Enterprise were really only used as a plot device.
> And then there's outside-of-universe things to consider of course.
>
> Everyone except the heroes (ok, bar a few exceptions like admiral Hayes, captain Jellico and captain Hernandez to name a few) has to be corrupt or incompetent. So that the heroes are less corrupt and more competent.
>
> Overall, I'd say that it's not Harriman's fault. I kind of liked him. Too bad he and his Enterprise were really only used as a plot device.
Or they died heroically off screen like Rachelle Garret. Or fade into obscurity like Robert April. Or end up like Christopher Pike.
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
Really we should feel sorry for him, Kirk's presence brought along adventure, and Harriman had never met her before.
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
Yeah, I guess those could be included with the other exceptions. Except April indeed, he's an odd one. He might as well have never existed.
It would have been nice if we'd have seen more of Harriman, Garrett and April. Starfleet in general seemed to be made up too much of a handful of people (competent or otherwise) at certain times.
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
People should also remember that the Enterprise-B wasn't actually scheduled for active duty yet. It was a publicity move to have the new Enterprise fly around the Solar System a week before her official launch. They weren't expecting to have to respond to an emergency.
Harriman may not have had the experience Kirk had, but he handled himself well, even surrounded by the Press and veteran officers. Some might say that his decision to go to Deflector Control was an attempt to abdicate to a more experienced officer, but I think it also showed that he WAS willing to get his hands dirty if necessary. While on paper giving Kirk command may have seemed like a good idea, Kirk accepted that it wasn't his ship and volunteered to go in Harriman's place.
We can assume that the Enterprise-B lasted many years, and had her share of adventures before the Enterprise-C was commissioned. And as far as I am aware, Ent-B was never listed as destroyed, so she did survive her tour.
> in the end of it all, Harriman is the second best captain in Star Trek, following Janeway as the best. why? neither one lost a starship.
Not in the prime timeline anyway. There was the year of hell.
Does having your ship stolen by space hillbillies count as lost?
And there were the deuterium copies that all died out.
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
He kinda gave the impression that he didn't become a captain by serving a long time and getting promoted but right after the academy or something.
Then of course, Kirk was present and he was like 'notice me Senpai'. Because of course he was.
Plus, he was one of the first young captains after the Khitomer-conference, when this new peace-and-prosperity era began. Or the era of we-send-ships-out-with-barely-any-equipment.
Enterprise-B wasn't fully outfitted because it was supposed to be just "a quick run around the block" to celebrate the commissioning of the new flagship. She would have been deployed, fully outfitted and staffed, the following week.
They literally got caught with their pants down so to speak with that emergency and Enterprise being the ONLY ship in range that could respond.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
And the 'relying on veteran officers' thing is just BS. Scotty is renowned as Starfleet's best engineer, and Chekov as an excellent helmsman, in a situation where the ship is barely under control and is hopelessly unequipped for a rescue mission. Was he supposed to NOT use all the resources at his disposal?! He had the fleet's best engineer and one of its best pilots on board and he used them.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
And that tradition even continued in Star Trek Into Darkness. Not sure if it was an intentional nod or for the drama but..
Enterprise departs to Q'onos - ships and a spacedock near Earth.
Enterprise gets chased back to Earth and suddenly everyone else is sleeping and no spacedock or any other ship in sight.
Anyway, despite the writers literally sticking a "kick me!" to Harriman's back in the movie by making him look like an idiot, the whole opening was the only somewhat good part of the movie IMO. He would have been a captain-character with an actual arc.
And no, it's objectively not his fault that Kirk "died". Kirk made the decision to go into the danger-zone due to his ego, while Harriman was absolutely willing to do it himself.
And standing beside him on what was intended to be the maiden voyage (rushed for press purposes, and I'm sure Harriman was acutely aware of everything his ship lacked at that moment) was the very man who'd made it a legend in the first place, and an Starfleet admiral to boot.
That wasn't "notice me, senpai" - that was "Great Bird of the Galaxy, please, please don't let me TRIBBLE this up in front of the press, in front of an admiral, and in front of three of the most legendary names in modern Starfleet history!" Coupled, of course, with the full knowledge that if anything did go wrong, he was as yet ill-equipped to handle it. Had he been a captain with more experience, or with pull in Command, he might have been able to force Starfleet's PR people to put this whole fiasco off until next Tuesday, but under the circumstances I imagine he was concerned that raising such objections for what was supposed to be a milk run, not even leaving Sol system, might have cost him his shiny new command.
Actually he was dropped back to Captain after ST4, the only punishment left after everything from ST3. But in a way it was actually a blessing in disguise because it put Kirk back into his comfort zone where he is a master, command of a Starship. Honestly I think Kirk hated being an Admiral.
But still Kirk had Legendary status.
Exactly. His actual rank was far surpassed by his reputation and achievements. The demotion was a mere formality that had to happen as a consequence for doing a lot of crazy stuff.
And with "notice me Senpai" I merely meant that the freshman-captain was having THE living legend of living legends on his bridge and had to try his best not to look like an idiot, while Kirk definately gave him the "you are a noob"-stare.
The writing of the scene and the lack of basic equipment made Harriman look dumb where he truly wasn't to blame.
When Kirk told Harriman to stay on the Bridge and volunteered to go himself, I feel that was Kirk accepting that the Enterprise-B needed her Captain more than it needed Captain Kirk. He basically passed the torch to Harriman in that instance. While Kirk had superior experience, it wasn't his ship. It wasn't his Chair. It belonged to another. And he decided to respect that.
As for the lack of basic equipment... I don't think Kirk even knew all the details. Just assumed that the ship was fully equipped and not just going around the block with nothing more than a full tank of gas and polished paint.
> To be honest, I always wondered what Kirk was doing there in the first place. I mean, did Starfleet flatter him into it? Was it HIS desire, as an excuse to be aboard a Starship again? As noted, he didn't seem overly comfortable about it all.
I think that was more setup than anything else. The rest of Kirk's time in that movie deals with his guilt over not having a family.
Remember he doesn't want to go help Picard at first, even knowing the nexus isn't necessarily real.
Really a Greek hero tragedy in space.
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
Some desk pilot back in Starfleet Hindquarters(no, I did not misspell it) decided it would be great publicity for the 'old' Captain of the 'old' Enterprise to be seen 'passing the torch' to the 'new' Captain of the 'new' Enterprise. Desk pilots go home every night and don't have to live with consequences and never ever get it right. Because they aren't smart enough to realize Murphy is an unstoppable force and is always, always on the side of Entropy. And their two second attention span guarantees there will always be a "next time". I have personal experience with this.
Harriman probably became a Captain by being that guy who worked career progression in the "real" Starfleet. The one which does all the mundane, routine Starfleet activities which ships like Enterprise, and a few others, get to skip out on. He checked all the boxes in the correct order at the correct time. Somebody who was his patron in the Admiralty made a good enough case with the other Admirals for him to be selected as Captain of the Enterprise-B. Nothing at all wrong with this. The above isn't intended as a dig at him.
Then, he is put in command in a situation he's not quite prepared for. And his ship isn't quite prepared for it either. Considering ENT-B saved a bunch of people who would have died had she not been there and she made it back to Space Dock relatively intact with only one casualty, he did far far better than anyone had a hope of expecting.
Meanwhile, the desk pilot who thought up this brilliant scheme got away with murder.
I called it 'relying on veteran officers' because I got the impression that was what the creators of the movie wanted to suggest. The idea that Harriman and perhaps Starfleet as a whole wouldn't get anywhere without those veterans.
It's basically what I said in another comment: that minor characters usually only serve to enhance the heroes / core characters.
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No, he took command before that Tuesday.