fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2739 ]

[ SECRET POST #2739 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2739 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 021 secrets from Secret Submission Post #391.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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I get that. The thing is, though, no other officer would have assigned her to the Farragut because they wouldn't have been concerned about the appearance of favoritism. An impartial observer would have assigned her to the Enterprise but Spock wasn't impartial and hence she took him to task for almost screwing her over to cover his own ass.

It WOULD have been favoritism if Uhura were unqualified, but she was clearly MORE qualified than the person they had -- indicating that the fault lies with Spock.

That she ultimately turned out to know a different language set from the other guy is irrelevant. That is just luck (or writer being lazy about characterization), that comes after she bitched to her boyfriend about not getting the plum job and the boyfriend giving in. Hey, in any other service if you don't like your assignment, or think it is beneath you, then that is just tough luck. And if you are fucking a superior officer or instructor, and try complaining to the brass that they aren't giving you a plum enough job that you think you are worth, then you just got both of you fired. Uhura gets the job because she is fucking Spock, and it is just good luck she happened to know the exact one of five million interstellar languages that the villain turned out to speak.

Unfortunately, I can't agree with you given that Spock said that he placed her on the Farragut in order to avoid the appearance of favoritism. If he hadn't said that, if she wasn't one of his top students, and if she hadn't shown herself to be more competent than the man currently at the communications post (to such a degree that PIKE immediately asks her to replace him) then I would agree with you.

The scene is definitely problematic though and it is rather emblematic of the issues of the Spuhura relationship -- it's underdeveloped. Because the first time we see that scene it does, indeed, look like a member of a military-style organization chewing out a superior officer for not getting exactly what she wants. The problem is that, given Spock and Uhura's personal relationship, Spock's judgement was impaired in this instance and Uhura was right. It's a scene of a girlfriend taking her boyfriend to task for trying to hide their relationship in a way that negatively impacts HER career. Pike would not have asked her to take the post if she were unqualified. And Spock himself admits that the reason she was assigned to the Farragut is due to him wanting to cover his ass -- not because the Farragut is where she's best suited or the place she earned. The place she earned is on the Enterprise.

And the place she was assigned was the Farragut. If she didn't like it, then she should have thought about that before embarking on a relationship with her superior. In that sense, she earned that place on the Farragut through lack of good judgement.

Yes, she was assigned to the Farragut but my point is that the assignment was unjust because Spock had a conflict of interest. HE is the one who is making HER pay the price for their relationship. And that's not okay.

And that is why you don't have that kind of relationship with a superior/junior officer. She should still have sucked it up, because it was still a matter of potluck that she spoke one of millions of languages that happened to be needed. Unless you are going to claim Uhura is fluent in everything, so would always know what to speak.

How was it a matter of luck? She's a xenolinguistics student -- the top xenolinguistics student in Spock's class -- and the issue that arose was one of knowledge of languages. Her performance in class is directly related to her performance in the field in this instance.

Let me put it this way -- on a lot of college campuses, it's not always against the rules to date your professor (this actually surprised me when I looked it up). If a professor gave you a lower grade on a test than you earned in order to avoid the appearance of favoritism, then HE is in the wrong. He's trying to protect himself by giving you a lower score than you've earned and you absolutely should fight to get what you worked for.

So you are saying she does speak everything then? And all the other comms officers in the fleet are learning, what?

As far as the college campus rule goes, well I'll admit I haven't been to every campus, but the ones I have been have been very firm on no fucking the students. Its been a disciplinary offense both above and below. As far as militaries go, and Starfleet whatever it might have been in the Original-verse is pretty damn military here, it is a red hot line. So she is just getting the inevitable result of that. She can always complain to Spock's CO (and Spock would be reprimanded equally), but she doesn't. To go back to college for a moment, if you think the professor you are fucking (and assuming fucking the staff is allowed) is giving you too low a mark then you can complain about it to the college authorities, but the one think you cannot do is go and say "hey, I'm your fucktoy and I think you've short-marked me so bump it up and I'll keep on putting out". Yet that is exactly what Uhura does. She just assumes she ought to be shoe-in for the Enterprise, but marks alone do not make someone fit for a particular role.

I'm saying that her skills and performance in class were directly related to the issue at hand and that Pike asking her to replace the individual manning the station (not just help him, but relieve him) is indicative of her qualifications.

And as for students dating professors -- it's not well looked on, but a lot of colleges don't have rules against it. Plus, there's always the stereotype of the professor going through a mid-life crisis who dates a graduate student so it's definitely not unheard of.

In TOS, we see that officers aboard the Enterprise can get married, so I doubt it's an issue there.

And I think you're misrepresenting the facts -- Uhura isn't demanding that Spock give her a post on the Enterprise BECAUSE she's his girlfriend. In fact, she was DENIED a post there because she's in a relationship with him. Which is where the unfairness comes in. When she makes her case to Spock, she points to her record -- her performance in class and her aural abilities. HE is the one who is denying her a position because of her personal relationship to him.

At no point did she reference the fact that he is her boyfriend or make any allusions to sex. She presented her record to Spock while he was the one denying her a spot because she's his girlfriend.

In that scene she had tactical information that the other guy didn't have. Anyone who had that could have been asked to step in. From the ship's janitor on up. She just spoke the right language, that is all. And class performance reviews are not the be all and end all of suitability for roles. If she truly believed that she was in the right, and was truly suitable and being done down by Spock then she would have gone to his superior and appealed it (and good luck). The only reason she went to Spock was that she was dating him, and the only reason Spock gave in was he was dating her. That means the only reason for her being on the Enterprise is she was sleeping with Spock, and however you want to slice it that is not a positive thing for a female black character.

Except that one's language skills are a pretty big part of being a communications officer -- it is absolutely relevant to her job and we see this again in in STID when she speaks Klingon. Also, given the situation, I doubt there time for her to go to a superior and appeal it. She found Spock because he could easily change it and he SHOULD change it given that she earned a post and he's letting the fact that she's his girlfriend get in the way.

The only reason Spock assigned her to the Farragut in the first place is because he was dating her (he says as much with his favoritism line). And that's why she's justified in taking him to task for it.

If she hadn't been dating Spock, she would have been assigned to the Enterprise right off the bat. He was at fault -- not her.

The person that should be getting flack in this scene is Spock. He's the one who is almost screwing over Uhura's career -- someone who he should love. And instead he's treating her like crap.

Re: The Reboots Improved Literally One Thing

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Re: The Reboots Improved Literally One Thing

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Re: The Reboots Improved Literally One Thing

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Re: The Reboots Improved Literally One Thing

tabaqui - 2014-07-04 17:50 (UTC) - Expand

You know what would be cool. A scene in the next movie where the partner/parent of whoever had to take Uhura's place on the Farragut confronted her. She basically consigned whoever replaced her there to death in the great fleet wipe out when she had Spock bump her to the Enterprise. It would be good to see the consequences of that played out on the screen.

Did someone else take her place though? I though she was reassigned but does that necessarily mean someone else was moved or could she have just been added to the Enterprise and the Farragut be short one person?

Well according to the movie they are basically training up entire crews at once, so if they are an Lt. short on one ship then that has to be filled from somewhere and if they are putting one extra on the Enterprise than that extra has to fill a space somewhere else. I think it is pretty certain that when Spock moved her across to the Enterprise, he'd have to have had someone else step into the Farragut to make the ship's complement.

I guess that's possible. I just think that it would have been rather difficult to ensure that the other person would have been told in time to get to the Farragut. He might have just moved Uhura and shortchanged the Farragut.

They are all checking their assignments and transport allotments off of futuristic ipads, so I don't see how (unless Star Trek doesn't use wireless). Someone probably just turned up to their transport to the Enterprise and got told, they'd just been bumped and go see travel pod pilot for the Farragut.

I just think it's likely that, once assignments were made, people would have been incredibly busy prepping their stations. There's no guarantee that they would have checked their postings or their futuristic iPads once they were on the job. Especially since it was a matter of some urgency. Also, I don't know whether Spock would have been willing to move someone from the Enterprise to the Farragut given that the Enterprise is the more prestigious ship. The person reassigned might have tried to go looking for him to ask about the reassignment and he would have had to explain (which I doubt he wanted to do).

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(Anonymous) - 2014-07-04 01:45 (UTC) - Expand

Of course someone took her place. You can't just have an OFFICER vanish from their assigned posting. Someone was moved, or bumped, or whatever to make a place for her and to fill the spot on the Farragut. And that was a big to-do they basically handwaved because in the real world, ships and particularly military ships are very careful about crew and everybody is assigned a job, a berth, etc., and you make sure everyone and everything is where they're supposed to be before you head out.

So yes - they had to scramble to replace her on the Farragut and that meant either a person who wasn't quite up to snuff got bumped up the ladder real sudden or someone on the Enterprise got taken off and was probably pissed as hell.

You can bet the Farragut's XO was pissed when s/he had to redo all the crew duty shifts, and who ever was in charge of arranging crew quarters would be pissed when they had to draw up a new bunk/cabin arrangement. The Farragut would have been given her file to arrange all that stuff before even Uhura was told where she was going, you can't just chop and change like that. Spock got lucky that the rest of the fleet was blown up, because there is no way the Farragut's CO would not have been filing a complaint on such an unprofessional act. I really don't think "my girlfriend wanted a better posting because she disagreed with my initial assessment in the middle of an emergency deployment" would have cut the mustard as an excuse either.

That is the other bit that gets me. They were in the middle of an emergency deployment. That is so not the right time to be arguing over placements. I get that, perhaps without the scramble, hen Uhura was officially given her assignment that she might have disagreed and lobbied Spock, or even Pike, for a better one. She would have had time to do it, and she could even have spoken to her CO on the Farragut too (although good luck as I see the phrase "So, you think you are too good for my boat do you?" looming large in that conversation). There might even have been (in fact I'd be surprised if there wasn't) an actual appeals process to follow. However, in the middle of an emergency scramble is not the time to do it. It was damn unprofessional of her to even try. Yeah, it worked out for the best because of writer's fiat, but still. Jeez that scene was a mess.

It really was and it just pissed me off *so bad*. Uhura is not a that unprofessional, that petty, that....anything. It was a huge disservice to her character and all because of writer!fail and the need to shoehorn in a romance.

BAH.

You completely made this up. If it makes you happy to do so, then great, but let's not run around pretending your fanfiction is canon information.

Uh, wth are *you* babbling about? One - i'm not in this fandom. Two - i don't write TOS/reboot fic of *any* kind. Three - no, sorry, I didn't. If we're going to pretend that the ST universe is even *remotely* like ours, with lines of command and whatnot, than this is the *logical conclusion* of that kind of action.

Sorry if that makes you all butthurt, but you don't just switch out officers on a freaking FLAGSHIP about to go into action without any kind of repercussions or commotion. That we don't get a hint of that in the actual movie just points up the vast faults in the plot and the fact that the writers and director didn't think things through.

Your crazy rant doesn't make anything you've written true. You're trying to apply your own rules to someone else's fictional universe = fanfiction. Though I could call it your personal headcanon if that will make you feel better.

Re: The Reboots Improved Literally One Thing

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tabaqui - 2014-07-04 17:59 (UTC) - Expand

You know, I'm not going to go into whether Uhura should or shouldn't have pushed Spock to move her. Spock certainly shouldn't have been in charge of his lover's posting assignment, though I suppose in a crisis there might not have been time to do things in proper channels, and I really hope they didn't get involved while he was her teacher -- before or after could be okay, since their ages are comparable, but not during.

But assigning Uhura moral responsibility for the death of whoever got moved to the Farragut is irrational, and Starfleet shouldn't let any irrational bereaved survivors near her. If Person A cuts in line and takes the last seat on a bus, and Person B consequently has to take the next bus and is killed when someone blows it up, Person A is an asshole, not a murderer.

I agree that it's not Uhura's fault, but I still think it could be an interesting plot line. Because let's be honest, even though it isn't her fault, bereaved loved ones are very often irrational and looking for someone to blame. So I think that it could make for an interesting narrative arc for Uhura to have to confront someone who blames her for an innocent action that inadvertedly contributed to a tragedy. This could work in the story, but I think the writers would have to be really careful to emphasize that it was SPOCK's fault that she had to request the change in the first place and that he's the one who bears responsibility for the switch. And even then…let's keep in mind that, whatever Spock or Uhura's actions, they were innocent and the deaths of Starfleet cadets is due entirely to Nero.

If we had better writers, I'd say go for it. But I think it would just end up horribly botched, unfortunately...

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