Which bridge officer did you choose? - Make your case

General
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It seems the most influential player choice in the game is which of the 3 bridge officers you choose to help you and promote.

Westbrook (science) - He’s been an obtuse stick in the mud the whole game. It seems his only skill is scientific research. I don’t see him in a leadership position. There’s a reason why he was passed over for promotion. He’d be a literal example of the Peter Principle. I didn’t choose him for the mutiny because he’s the captain’s friend and is openly jockeying for my position. It’s not a surprise he went ham at me when I passed him over but at least it made narrative sense for him to respond that way. I read some people had Urmott respond that way to them and that would have come out of nowhere.

Bedrosian (tactical) - She gave me the impression of being really inexperienced. It’s like she’s a green cadet with the amount of hero worship she lays on you. I don’t want a yes-woman. And then there’s the penchant for murder… my 21st century ethics tell me glassing a civilisation in stasis is a no-no, biological or not, and she lives in a universe where digital life is a frequent occurrence. I was genuinely disgusted she decided to resign her commission in the middle of a crisis. And icing on the cake was begging us to let the Tkon die when they had formally surrendered.

Urmott (ops) - my dark horse. I’d pretty much forgotten about him until the mutiny came up, then I realised he was the perfect choice. Calm and competent. Someone who would lay out the facts for me rather than confirm my own biases. It didn’t just look good to the crew if me and someone not already in my corner both suspected the captain, it reassured myself that someone would keep tabs on my paranoia. I chewed out Westbrook for writing him off as a “bureaucrat”.

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I choose Westbrook (Science) he’s a good counter to your command. It’s good to have an opposing point of view. He also has the most experience of all the bridge crew, and he was correct this is a science vessel there should be a senior science officer as the first officer. He takes the crews safety ahead of blindly following. During a pivotal moral dilemma whether to save the TKON rebel souls he sided with me that it was the morally correct decision to save lives. Bedrosian wanted to kill them all she is too inexperienced.

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Westbrook. He was a good fit for a SCI ship.

Next time I’ll choose Urmott.

I’ll also choose Bedrosian in 3rd PT to see how it plays out, but personally I don’t think someone throwing a fit like she did is ready to handle such a responsibility. For all I know, she’d resign next time we disagree on something… :wink:

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I thought Bedrosian was too much of a fangirl kiss ass to begin with - especially after she came to see Jara outside Sickbay. She then turned out to have an anti-starfleet murder streak running through her. Not to mention that she was only a lieutenant - not even a lieutenant commander, so it made no sense to even have her in the line up. In my first playthough I didn’t have her as an option anyway because she had a hissy fit and resigned.

Urmott seemed like he could have been a good choice, but after the meeting with him at spacedock (and a little time on the bridge) we don’t get much time with him compared to Westbrook and Bedrosian, who are going on away missions with us. Not having built-up any kind of relationship with him, I didn’t have the inclination to choose him. I did choose him in my second playthrough, but he didn’t feel like the right fit.

I went with Westbrook in my first playthrough - which I consider my true version. Although he and Urmott were both commanders, it was made clear that he had the higher position on the bridge. That made it seem like the natural choice from the get go. The fact that Solano passed him up didn’t affect my opinion since Solano (even before becoming Tkon) made questionable command decisions based on what he thought was best for his own career. Apparently he didn’t choose Westbrook because of a lack of people skills, but I think it’s just because Solano didn’t want Westbrook questioning his decisions. I saw Westbrook’s prejudice towards Jara as a response to losing his best friend and Solano adding salt to an open would by not making him XO. I don’t think he truly had something against Jara for being Kobliad. It helped that Westbrook is the only one of the three who interacts with Cater. We see his good relationship with the crew and we see him open up, explore his reasoning and begin to question his attitude towards Jara and wonder if he was mistaken. I chose Westbrook for the mutiny for the very reason that they had a turbulent start. Westbrook would be the most difficult to convince, and thus it would mean the most. After the mutiny, Westbrook’s entire attitude towards Jara changed. He was now supportive but would still be a counterpoint to her decisions.

In my second playthrough, I chose the deflector option and it was Wesbrook who came to see Jara outside Sickbay. This felt a lot more genuine than Bedrosian’s visit because he was humbly coming to apologise about his earlier behaviour.

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You all make me want to choose Bedrosian. :stuck_out_tongue:

Inexperience can lead to you shaping that person into an ideal First Officer and future Captain. Being able to make the decision to kill or allowed to die is not always easy and can hang up the most experienced officers in a crucial situation that needs a quick decision to save more lives than just the obvious. Giving her a chance might build the confidence the character lacks initially. Those in command positions image shouldn’t matter. They are there to do a job. Not make friends.

Thanks for making the choice easy for me to choose a First Officer. :smiley:

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Commander Urmott,

choose him to back me during the “mutiny” too, is always level headed and has a good insight about situations. He also gave me the heads up before going aboard the Resolution, so he trusted me without an “advance payment”.

Bedrosian put herself out of the process, cause I did the Starfleet thing and saved the T’Kon mind crystals. Made me fail to understand why she joined Starfleet in the first place.

Westbrook is not stable, he lost so important during the warp experiment, also his only argument is being his seniority, that does not inspire me to choose him at all. I have not choosen his option during ion pulse though, so I have to try if this will give him more facets to his character.

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Being really nitpicking, I miss an opportunity to promote someone from the lower decks to work on the bridge. Ok, it happens eventually offscreen, but having Chovak on the Ops, replacing Urmott, as he is my XO now, and then Carter or Edsilar earn some pips, too, would be awesome.

Maybe in the next game

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Interesting. That is not who waited for me outside sickbay. :slight_smile:

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It depends on if you chose the shield or deflector. On my second playthrough I got Westbrook come to Sickbay.

@LordDrakkon No doubt Bedrosian could be shaped into an ideal first officer, but that should be gained through the experience of being a lieutenant and lt. commander first, not fastracked straight to commander and XO. I would, however, be very interested to find out what the results are of picking Bedrosian. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it once you’ve finished the story.

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Westbrook was my choice. Everything else aside, he’s not afraid to toss ideas out there. Whether they are right or wrong, at least he’s quick to give options in a crisis. So does Bedrosian, but there was no way I could pop her up two full grades over much more senior officers. At least not on first playthrough. And Urmott’s a good officer, but… uniquely qualified for First Officer? No. He’s good about commenting on the ideas of others, but I don’t recall any pivotal contributions from him in any crisis.

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I really don’t get the fascination with Westbrook as a First Officer. This guy tries too hard to kiss your butt and tries to hold a grudge against you for not taking his suggestion about the docking clamps. He also complains about your character is the First Officer, thinking it should have went to someone on the crew (can’t remember who). Then again, maybe this is just due to the choices I made in game but right now, this clown would be flushed out an airlock if I had that as a choice. :stuck_out_tongue:

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It’s not as much an obsession as making the most logical choice of the three. Which in my playthrough, with my choices, was Westbrook.

First, Bedrosian demonstrated a frightening lack of discipline by resigning in the middle of the mission, after enough actions were taken to preserve Tkon life. Which preserving life, unless directly violating the Prime Directive (which in this case didn’t because Portal makes a direct plea for mercy), is one of those chief tenants of Starfleet. Then she sticks with that resignation if you save the Scions from their imminent destruction. In my view, she didn’t have the proper temperament for Starfleet as a whole, let alone as First Officer of a ship from the moment she abandoned her post. So she put herself out of the running.

That left Urmott and Westbrook for me. And to be fair, there were strong arguments for either one of them. Both had a good amount of time on the ship, with the crew, and were well respected. Both had their good qualities and their hinderances, but at the end of the day, I had to go with my gut choice. And that was Westbrook. Everything aside as even match, I felt he was the best choice to show the crew that Rydek taking over command wasn’t a simple power play, that the command staff was being structured to challenge Rydek if and when needed, should she ever put the ship, crew, and mission at risk.

I may (probably will) feel differently on subsequent playthroughs.

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You missed out on a good temper tantrum by Westbrook by selecting him as your First Officer. I also had Bedrosian resign, even after denying her resignation. :stuck_out_tongue: Her loss though. I would have chosen her as my First Officer. I guess I will have to play a second playthrough to see what some different choices bring about.

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I thought Urmott was being a baby when he didn’t get the promotion, but Westbrook took it to a whole new level. :laughing:

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Hahaha right?! I completed 2 playthrough’s as well and for some reason it was more satisfying wrestling with Westbrooke at the battle :sweat_smile: “Westbrooke and I have history, not you!” :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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On my first playthrough, I chose Urmott. The blue guy. Race play part of it. Human has emotions, anger, pain. So, I picked Urmott. Westbrook would be my top choice. But I need to test him. See if he ready not that he wants promotion but above call of duty without rank. He failed that time & time again. Bedrosian need to learn leadership takes actions without thinking. She is young & stubborn at times. I’m glad she changed her mind to help me in need of crises. :slight_smile: I hope in the future series I get a better upgrade ship! Looking forward for see Klingon!

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Urmott for me. Had Bedrosian not stormed off with a tempertantrum, that had been a hard decision for me between Urmott and Bedrosian. Yeah, Bedrosian is green and more than a little trigger happy, but part of her character’s quirks stood out ot me. Westbrook, I think others have nailed that one on the head better than I can could phrase it. There’s a reason why he was passed up for promotion to XO before, and those reasons still show to me. He’s too hot headed and finger pointy when he needn’t not be.

Urmott was always calm and collected. With the amount of whisky-tango-foxtrot going on left and right, I valued his calmness and saw that as something the crew of the Resolute needed, something that I would want in times like that. Had it been a different situation, one where keeping your cool wouldn’t have won out on top for me, Wesbrook may have finally made the cut with his experience and seniority.

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Westbrook. For the same reason Picard wanted Riker: Because they do not fear to challenge authority where necessary.

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I’ve played through the game twice now. In the first run I acted as Jara as I would expect Starfleet officers to behave and let Carter be emotional, in the end he was bioformed but survived.
I chose Urmott as an officer because he seemed to me to be the best choice. On the one hand, Bedrosian had quit the job, on the other hand, Westbrook was too emotional for me the whole time and because of the differences from the start, it didn’t feel like a trusting collaboration.

In the second run I felt like I did everything differently. Carter didn’t have a relationship with Maris, sent her to the brig instead of sick bay and shot her, in the end Nili was bioformed and died. Same with Jara, I played her significantly differently. At the beginning I was very dependent on Solano, later I had her to cancel the last transport of the Alydians, destroyed the vault and didn’t save the T’Kon in the end. I chose Bedrosian as first officer because she actually felt right on “that path”, the two have an emotional connection and it was a good fit.

The different game sequences that emerged were astonishing. Especially that Portal 63 works with you or fights against you on the Apellion. That surprised me.

So I’ll start a third run and use Westbrook as an officer and try to choose different answers here and there than in the first two runs.

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