>The reality of keeping a cast across years didn't hurt Sulu's character as
>much as it did Riker's. He ended up turning into a diffident Hamletesque
>guy who was afraid to spread his wings and set off on his own.
The utterly amazing part about Riker is that it was so totally unnecessary.
They made him a "transporter clone" that they DIDN'T kill off in the
episode. All they had to do was promote "William Riker" and bring "Thomas
Riker" in. He was more junior, so he could have taken over Data's position
while Data got promoted to XO. Whole new character dynamic, but you don't
even have to kick anyone out of the cast.
They HAD THIS SOLUTION and no one was intelligent enough to actually figure
it out! I am still blown away by how badly they blew that opportunity.
Instead they throw the character away in some silly DS9 throw-away episode.
What a terrible wasted opportunity that all turned out to be.
Riker: Why would he leave? He pretty much figured that Picard would get promoted out of the big chair eventually and he'd slip into it right on schedule. Then of ocurse there was Counselor Troi, who was pretty much the love of his life, and she didn't seem to be going anywhere either. Actually, they pretty thoroughly covered the whole business of "should I stay or should I go?" during the course of the series. The character evolved and at the end he and Troi finally transferred to the Titan, which I could see since it was also clear at that point that Picard would accept a promotion to Admiral and off the Enterprise when hell froze over.
You know what's funny...most people just accept that Spock was happy being the XO on the NCC-1701 and never questioned it. But with Riker...
As for Thomas Riker, I couldn't see him sticking around the Enterprise, and as for sticking around Star Fleet, he didn't seem like he would fit in and that was pretty quickly proven out (he was a throw away character and was treated as such). Let's be honest, a brash 20-something comes across much better than a brash 30-something. Even Kirk had to settle down.
As for Sulu, remember the line, "he made the time", meaning he had a family unlike the others. That perhaps took him off the fast track promotion wise, though it is sort of amusing to see on the bridge of that Klingon ship they "commandeered" before "The Voyage Home" no fewer than an admiral, two captains (depending upon how you interpret Scotty's rank), and three full commanders. By the time the next movie had ended, Kirk was a captain again, but the Enterprise-A was still *way* too top heavy in ranks, I'll grant you.
Where this relates back to Traveller is real-world antecedents to rank
structure. The top-heaviness we saw in ST was obviously an artifact of the
cast's back story, but people on the creative side may have rationalized
that by looking at the real world. By the early '90s US CVs routinely
deployed with four O6 Captains: the CO, XO, Air Wing Commander, and Chief
Engineer. That's a sign of a military having fewer ships while still
wanting to maintain the same personnel levels and number of senior officer
billets. One could imagine seeing that in the 3I, but not in the RC where
they'd be scratching to find as many qualified officers as they could to
promote to their level of ability. That always made Star Fleet in Kirk's
era appear to be a very young, rapidly growing service.
But since Traveller never grappled with Augustine's (16th, but most
important) Law it didn't replicate the RW incessant contraction of armed
forces over time.
> Riker: Why would he leave? He pretty much figured that Picard would get
> promoted out of the big chair eventually and he'd slip into it right on
> schedule. Then of ocurse there was Counselor Troi, who was pretty much
> the love of his life, and she didn't seem to be going anywhere either.Â
> Actually, they pretty thoroughly covered the whole business of "should I
> stay or should I go?" during the course of the series. The character
> evolved and at the end he and Troi finally transferred to the Titan, which
> I could see since it was also clear at that point that Picard would accept
> a promotion to Admiral and off the Enterprise when hell froze over.
> You know what's funny...most people just accept that Spock was happy being
> the XO on the NCC-1701 and never questioned it. But with Riker...
>
> As for Thomas Riker, I couldn't see him sticking around the Enterprise,
> and as for sticking around Star Fleet, he didn't seem like he would fit in
> and that was pretty quickly proven out (he was a throw away character and
> was treated as such). Let's be honest, a brash 20-something comes across
> much better than a brash 30-something. Even Kirk had to settle down.
>
> As for Sulu, remember the line, "he made the time", meaning he had a
> family unlike the others. That perhaps took him off the fast track
> promotion wise, though it is sort of amusing to see on the bridge of that
> Klingon ship they "commandeered" before "The Voyage Home" no fewer than an
> admiral, two captains (depending upon how you interpret Scotty's rank),
> and three full commanders. By the time the next movie had ended, Kirk
> was a captain again, but the Enterprise-A was still *way* too top heavy in
> ranks, I'll grant you.
>