#71 - With Carson Tower incapacitated, Captains Goldstein, Frasier, and Marsden form a "triumvirate" of sorts in overall command of the 9th Fleet. Meanwhile Townsend becomes acting commanding officer of the Enterprise with Stafford as her executive officer.
#72-While Carson Tower enjoys his recovery and return to active duty, an apparent serial killer is targeting famous Starfleet officers and working his way up the ranks. Townsend is offered her own command.
Episode #71b- note this episode is after #71 above and before #72. Carson Tower rehabs both physically and mentally while working on a farm run by a former Starfleet officer on an agricultural world. Eager to take command of her own ship but not allowed to leave Enterprise until Tower returns, Townsend sends a series of messages to Starfleet urging them to "encourage" Tower's return.
"A Series of Completely Unremarkable Events"- A few hours of life aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise as "seen" by the sensors of an Exocomp damage control drone as it roams the corridors, passageways, conduits, and ductwork of the ship.
Captain Frasier of the U.S.S. Discovery summons Tower secretly after a small ship is found....with Marsden, Goldstein, Townsend, and Stafford aboard. They claim they are the REAL Starfleet officers with those identities. That they were kidnapped and replaced by duplicates. Six years ago......
Marsden and Goldstein are caught having premarital gay sex. Tower must decide which one of them to publicly execute in order to set a moral example for the rest of his crew. Hilarity ensues.
"Days of Secrets Past"- Decades later, Tower tries to find the family of the first person he ever killed and make amends.
"The Last of the Great Armchair Generals"- a shakeup at Starfleet Command results in Tower being reassigned to a desk (actually a chair) at a nearby Starbase. but the talented Captain Carson Tower doesn't allow his sedentary assignment to diminish his ability to move events forward.
"Old Soldiers Never Die"- the crew is summoned to the Starfleet Museum at Memory Alpha to investigate a break in where the criminal apparently was seeking files and technical information decades old. The routine mission takes an abrupt turn when an enormous warship of uncertain origins is stolen from its parking orbit in the museums Starship Annex.
Carson Tower (prior to loss of eye and arm). Commander Frederick Goldstein Commander Elizabeth Townsend
Indictments Pending After ordering the 9th Fleet to retreat from the planet Coridan II rather than fight a hopeless battle with the Borg, Tower is charged with 1.4 billion counts of manslaughter by the Coridians. Last Look Back Twenty five years after the end of the war, noted author Jake Sisko interviews Tower and others about the events of the Borg Conflict.
Some Stories Are Never Meant to End. As a favor to Admiral Will Riker, Tower leads the crew to Veridian III to use a new technology to recover the Enterprise-D saucer section. Townsend sees a big opportunity when she gets to command a new Galaxy class engineering hull that is to be mated to the saucer. A Radically Different Perspective A severely injured Carson Tower must command the ship and lead the crew during a dangerous crisis while lying on his back in sickbay and frequently sedated.
Carson Tower sounds pretty irresponsible. If he is "frequently sedated" he lacks the capacity to command and should delegate.
You can certainly make that argument. I was inspired by one of Lois McMaster Bujold's "Miles Vorkosigan" stories where the small, weak, and frequently injured Miles must stop a coup attempt against his father while confined to a hospital bed. Perhaps Goldstein, Townsend, and Stafford are also out of action as well.
It would still go down the chain of command though, even in the Trek world. That's been made clear in many episodes.
In "Journey To Babel" Spock makes it clear to his mother that after Kirk and himself no other officer can command the Enterprise under the unusual circumstances (diplomatic party aboard while being stalked by a possibly dangerous ship).
Wrong. As has been frequently the case in your understanding of TOS episodes you haven't followed or understood the plot properly. That is Spock's arrogance in assuming only he can command in the absence of Kirk. That's the whole damn purpose of the scene where Kirk shows up, pretends to be well, relieves Spock and then puts Scotty in command as the next in the chain of command.
He does, which is his prerogative, but the point is he still recognises the chain of command and went there with the intention of giving command to Scott.
Only to force Spock to proceed to Sickbay to save Sarek. From what I can see Spock was probably correct in his assessment of the command situation.
#82- Surprise! While searching for a unique birthday gift for Tower, Marsden and Townsend end up purchasing two antique emergency message buoys from a trader. One from a Klingon D-7 cruiser. The other from the U.S.S. Enterprise. Captain James T. Kirk commanding. With considerably difficulty the crew manages to recreate the mission of the Enterprise by combining the recordings on the two buoys.
#83- ...also starring... A crew seeking to make a holodrama miniseries comes aboard the Enterprise but decide to make Stafford the focus of their production after deciding that Tower with his disfigured face and gravelly voice doesn't look "captainy" enough.
again underlining how he was far from fit for command. his personal concerns compromised his ability to command (not too mention, maintain even a semblance of vulcan composure), much like when he raged out in ST09.
I'll pitch an episode: "ERR..." The crew encounters a solar system being consumed by a network of malfunctioning Von Neumann probes. Examining the probes, the crew discovers an error in their programming that makes them consume material and replicate constantly rather than as needed. The civilization that created the probes is pre-warp and continues to send out networks of probes throughout the sector, unaware of their error. Can they stop the probes somehow without violating the Prime Directive and alerting the civilization to the presence of alien life in the galaxy?
With Dayton banned, I will be taking over as show runner. "Terrordrome" Romulan Tal Shiar agents force Captain Tower to fight a space-gorilla. Mik and Al's attempt to build the perfect android girlfriend go horribly wrong with hilarious results.
Where's Eddy?: Tower's half Russian/part Klingon bastard daughter, Daphne Rozhenko joins Captains Frasier and Marisden (via subspace transmission) on the USS Nile S in analyzing the design and placement of the captain's chair.
"The Thrill Of The Chase" A rogue Starfleet officer and former Starfleet Academy rival of Captain Tower steals top secret Starfleet Weaponry and it's up to the crew to chase him down and/or destroy him. Mik and Al are assigned to investigate the mystery of who crapped in the Deck 4 replicator.