#shaw thoughts

[stardate44002point3]

Shaw and Risk - some thoughts

Rewatching Picard S3 and to turns out I have more thoughts about Shaw. Who out there is surprised?

So, much of what follows is actually derived from the many, many Todd Stashwick interviews about Shaw that are all over the internet right now. With some additional insightful commentary from the Shaw Nation Discord server (thanks all y'all).

Here's the thing. In response to all the people who hate Shaw, who think he isn't a "real" Starfleet captain; who think he's a coward (thanks dudebros on the ST Facebook pages); who think he's boring. He's actually none of those things. He's what actual military (and quasi military) leaders look like. Our first introduction to him is him talking about structure and tempo and meter; structure exists so that when you are doing something inherently risky (exploring the final frontier) you have guidelines so that you aren't always relying entirely on your own judgement. Rules and guidelines and procedures exist to keep people safe in an inherently risky environment.

To make a real life comparison, in search operations, coastguard, marine and mountain rescue there are specific conditions under which a rescue will NOT be initiated because the weather or other conditions are too dangerous, exceed the tolerances of the equipment etc. Think back to the beginning of the year when Julian Sands went missing in the San Bernardino Mountains, there were entire days when not only were the helicopter search and rescue teams grounded because of weather, but even the ground team didn't deploy because it was too dangerous (and there were multiple people lost on Mt Baldy at the time). Are they cowards? Of course not, they have procedures and criteria that are laid down by risk management experts that advise whether there is too great a risk to the rescuers. If the risk is too great, they don't go out.

But we're used to fictional universes where those are exactly the kinds of high-stakes situations that make for good drama, and that always end well because our deontological heroes always have to be vindicated.

Presumably Starfleet has exactly those kinds of structures and procedures that govern their operations; so taking a crew of 500 out beyond the edge of Federation space to rescue Bev Crusher from some unknown peril is exactly the kind of thing that Starfleet would have policies for, and those policies would say NO. As they should. We're just used to our Starfleet heroes blithely ignoring those structures, taking the 1% of success chance and of course, succeeding because the writers make it so.

Although it has often struck me that, if we actually were able to count the 'redshirt' (they aren't all redshirts, that's just shorthand for unnamed characters) deaths in Star Trek, the attrition rates for our favorite captains might be surprisingly high, even with writers giving us deus ex machina saves every second week. It's just that they aren't main characters so their deaths are meaningless.

Back to Picard: there is a moment in Episode 2 that struck me at the time, where Seven is really disingenuous. She asks Shaw if he wants to be known as the captain that let two legends die; or the hero who saved them. As his XO she should also have pointed out option 3; that he be known as the captain who led his crew of 500 into a face off against a much more powerful opponent and they all died. Now, why didn't the writers put those words in her mouth?

Added to which, Shaw is an engineer, I think there's a reason the writers made him an engineer. A huge part of his professional life is risk-management, that's much of what engineers do. They are consequentialists. They look at the equipment tolerances, margins of safety, human capacity for error, and then they make rules to allow certain actions to take place (exploring the final frontier) and also keep as many people as possible safe (bringing most of your crew home alive).

And finally, there's all that accumulated trauma from Wolf 359. Shaw lived, undeservedly as far as he is concerned, his job as captain is to make sure everyone else lives. And using Starfleet protocols is one way to make sure that happens, to the best of his ability.

I mean, Shaw is clearly not a coward, he has commendations for bravery in his ready room, he's all in once he makes a decision to commit to a course of action, and he puts himself in the frontline every time he has a (realistic) chance of shielding his crew from harm. The man was willing to die to stop the Changelings from taking the bridge.

And that's the only niggle I have about his last appearance, and his speech about Seven; Shaw is not boring and rules don't necessarily need to be broken because again, the rules exist for a reason, they are generally not arbitrary and, in reality, breaking the rules gets people killed. The only reason rule breakers are celebrated in Star Trek is because it is FICTION. It's how we would like to see the world, not how it is, but it's actually a pretty dangerous way to think.

[sebastianshaw]

re THIS QUOTE it's one of the best that sums up Shaw, I think. He doesn't intend to KILL this woman to silence her, it's messy and uneccsary and would just draw MORE attention. And he doesn't NEED to. He can just buy out all the publishing houses. And doing so doesn't even conflict with his own ideals----freedom of the press, of course, but the press has the same freedom to refuse a story. And if he owns the press.... Honestly, I think it's a GREAT example of just how powerful someone like him really is in ways that have nothing to do with punching or violence, and how that power can be used. And it's way more interesting to me than if he just murdered her.

[thoughtkick]

I like how sleeping next to someone means more than sex sometimes, the body’s way of saying ‘I trust you to be by my side at my most vulnerable time,’ you have no defenses when you are asleep, you tell no lies

Eric Shaw

[perfectfeelings]

I like how sleeping next to someone means more than sex sometimes, the body’s way of saying ‘I trust you to be by my side at my most vulnerable time,’ you have no defenses when you are asleep, you tell no lies

Eric Shaw

[thehopefulquotes]

I like how sleeping next to someone means more than sex sometimes, the body’s way of saying ‘I trust you to be by my side at my most vulnerable time,’ you have no defenses when you are asleep, you tell no lies

Eric Shaw

[linusbenjamin]

Amy Acker as Root Person of Interest Created by Jonathan Nolan

[quotefeeling]

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw

[demigodofhoolemere]

“The female companions in the classic series never did anything but scream and twist their ankles”

[perfectquote]

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.

George Bernard Shaw

[darling-solaire]

sketches of a couple of redacted couples

(This is a new side blog to hopefully convince me to post more redacted content but we’ll see if I fully commit to it)

[nightlyquotes]

I like how sleeping next to someone means more than sex sometimes, the body’s way of saying ‘I trust you to be by my side at my most vulnerable time,’ you have no defenses when you are asleep, you tell no lies

Eric Shaw

[sebastianshaw]

I have a Penguin mini-series called “Pain & Prejudice” somewhere. In it, a man commits a casual slight against Penguin, insulting him when he bumps into him on the street before, in horror, he realizes who it is and apologizes profusely. The Penguin laughs and tells him not to worry. But then oddly, the man finds himself fired at his job for embezzlement, his apartment burns down, his parents die in a very mysterious car crash, and a seemingly random person accosts his girlfriend on the street and injects her with something that doesn’t get specified but medicine hasn’t caught up to yet. All this goes to show just how cruel and petty the Penguin is, and just how much influence and power he has in Gotham. And I was thinking, it’s stated pretty often (though really not shown well bc I think writers often don’t know HOW) that Shaw has far greater influence, that the Hellfire Club has this on a global scale, that Shaw in particular can reach “princes, presidents, and popes” And again, not often demonstrated because you can’t punch that away, but we’re told he has it and I don’t doubt that. I think the reason we don’t see stories like this from Shaw is simply that he isn’t that petty. Penguin is portrayed as horrifically insecure and needing the love and approval, even if it must be bribed or forced, from all those around him, and punishing any deviation from that due to his trauma from bullying and abuse. Shaw very fucking blatantly doesn’t give a shit, there are multiple instances where he’s just “yeah I’m fucking asshole what about it” One of the few good moments he got in the Krakoa era was in a N.ew M.utants issue by Ed B.risson where a cartel leader calls him a swear and Shaw’s response is simply “That I am.” Which is not to say Shaw is a pushover—perish the thought!---but that he’s learned that the only opinion and approval that matters is his own. I say “learned” because we do learn in the backstory with L’s death that this wasn’t always the case. He’s horrified to learn of Ned’s betrayal, despite having been warned by L and T.essa, and concludes verbally that he let his own need for acceptance blind him to the truth all around him. So, at this point in his life, he did care about the opinions of others—namely, the uber rich, amidst whose ranks he had just been accepted, which makes sense—and it cost him the most important person in his life. Between that and the fact he clearly became more and more of An Absolute Bastard Man since that, one who is TEXTUALLY stated to no longer let himself be vulnerable to others and “handled relationships like chess games” out of the expectation he will always be betrayed, it’s no wonder to me he would stop giving a fuck what anyone things. Which is a cool way to be, don’t get me wrong, wish I was like that, but also isn’t coming from a place any less traumatic than Oswald’s, it just goes the other way because of different circumstances. And the point of this rant isn’t “Shaw is Better than Penguin bc Shaw isn’t petty” it absolutely is not. I actually LOVE Pengy, that’s why I own that miniseries! It’s just, it is often DIFFICULT to a play a muse with the power and reach that Shaw has, and not use it to godmod a whole bunch of terrible shit happening to other people’s characters who piss him off (which a lot do, that is the personal mission of more than one muse I write with!) like the Penguin does to that dude. Because like. . .I don’t want to do that, firstly it’s bad RP etiquette and second it would limit the characters I could keep interacting with. But Shaw is an incredibly powerful guy who very much could make life miserable (or over) for like…honestly, almost anyone he wanted. So it helps that I can just go “well he actively doesn’t give enough of a shit, you’re not worth the time to him that it would take to make those arrangements” But I am 1000% sure he could. (also: in the spirit of fairness to Pengy, he’s shown to be JUST as disproportionate in REWARDING genuine kindness shown to him and those he cares for as he is in punishing unkindness. For instance, when he sees the nurse who cared for his elderly mother is genuinely crying at his beloved mother’s death, he ensures she’s set for life. So his pettiness, ruthless and cruel as it is, also has equally generous aspects. Love that complexity!)

[thoughtkick]

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.

George Bernard Shaw

[aspielce]

[perfectfeelings]

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw

[thehopefulquotes]

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw