Talk:Rick Berman (Admiral)

Rick K. Berman is only referenced in 2293, so it could be another person, maybe from the same family of R. Berman and Rick Berman (Commander). Probably, the name doesn't include the generation number like Charles Tucker III - Philoust123 14:20, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Good catch on the K.

However, is it possible that there is one long-lived Rick K. Berman who was the 1701-B officer in 2293 and then an Admiral in the 2360s? IT might cut the number of articles if we just assumed these people are pretty much one and the same.

I'm looking into possibilities regarding these characters. In particular, Cmdr. Rick and Admiral Rick seem to co-exist, so I'm wondering if there's any likelihood of them being the same person. Maybe Admiral Rick might be referred to as "Commander" since he is the Admiral who is "Commander, Starfleet" at the time. It would, again, make for one less article. -- Captain M.K.B. 14:30, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

While playing with all of these Berman characters, it would be good to fix the Berman disambig page at the same time and expand each of the text links to give a vague idea as to which Berman is which. As an aside, there is also a number of links to Rick K. Berman, so we should also figure out where those should be going. -- Sulfur 14:37, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

For me, the R. Berman can't be the same as the 24th century captain. The K. Berman is a high-ranking officer in 2290s (40 years at least), implying he is at least 120 years in 2370s. There's also a Jeri Taylor (Vice Admiral) / Jeri Taylor (Commander) and Brannon Braga (Commander) in Voyager's crew manifest. - Philoust123 15:08, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your intuition -- the Earth Starfleet "R. Berman" probably isn't the same as the 23rd century version.

but I see a more definite correlation between the 23rd century Rick K. and the 24th century Admiral and Commander. i like the idea of not having an extra Jeri Taylor article as well,. -- Captain M.K.B.

As I have said on other talk pages, I think that there should either be separate pages (four in the R. Berman case) for each of the various characters with the same surname and first initial, and only mentioned in writing or graphics; OR only one.
Of those options I would strongly support one page over many, as the separate pages would be very short, very interlinked, and have the same notes.
I understand that this might complicate Captain Mike's work on categories for Dedication Plaque Personnel, but I also think that said work is already complicated by having what must be separate people on the same page already. (2–3 different Rick Bermans on this page for example)
Since I do really believe that one page for all of the Berman characters is best, I think that in these cases it should be appropriate to put the specific categories on the related redirect pages. That way the categories would list the proper version of each character, but clicking on the links would redirect to one page that details all of the related tribute characters. —MJBurrage • TALK • 04:55, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

R. Berman should stay the same as it was. I've already explained why the 150 year difference and lack of a first name makes it unwise to group that article in with these. changing it like you did would also mess up categorizations. -- Captain M.K.B. 08:22, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

If it is important that R. Berman is separate (because he is a different person) than why would we not want two or three articles for the various Rick Bermans.

We have four (three if you really think the 23rd and 24th century admirals are the same individual) different characters all named after Mr. Berman.

1. R. Berman (Earth Starfleet)
2. Rick K. Berman (flag officer)
3. Rick Berman (admiral)
4. Rick Berman (commander)

I can understand the reasoning behind having separate pages for each, and I can understand the reasons for having one page for all of them.

What I do not understand is why we would want one page for three of the them, and a separate page for only one.

If they need to be separate for categorization then they should all be separate. Otherwise they should all be one page.

What they have in common (Surname, First Initial, Listed only in background text, based on a crew member, etc.) out-weighs the one thing they might not have in common (given name, and for all we know that IS the same anyway)

—MJBurrage • TALK • 04:20, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

There are no indication that R. Berman is a male or female. He / she can be an ascendant of the followings, in particular seeing the long lifespan of this character (most likely human as he/she belongs to Earth Starfleet in the 2250s) if it was the same.
Rick K Berman and Adm Rick Berman may be the same character. It is possible that as a human he lived over 120 years (McCoy was 137), but noone said he was human which enables a long lifespan as an alien.
The case of Cdr Berman from the Voyager crew is a little bit more complex : "Rick Berman" is listed on the dedication plaque of the USS Voyager (2371), but also on the Enterprise-E (2372), the Prometheus (2373) and the USS São Paulo (2375).
Furthermore, there are too many superior officers on the Voyager :

• Cdr J. Bartlett (list of deads)
• Cdr Rick Berman (crew manifest)
• Cdr Brannon Braga (crew manifest)
• Lt Cdr L. McGarry (list of deads)
• Lt Cdr Michael Piller (crew manifest)
• Cdr Jeri Taylor (crew manifest)
• Lt Cdr Brad Yacobian (crew manifest)
• Lt Cdr T. Ziegler (list of deads)
• Lt Cdr Merri Howard (crew manifest)
• Lt Cdr Richard James (crew manifest)
• Lt Cdr Peter Lauritson (crew manifest)
• Lt Cdr David Livingston (crew manifest)

They can't all have died during "Caretaker" (12 deads including Stadi, Cavit and a nurse, in the first week according to "Nightingale") and such ranks are outranking Tuvok and Chakotay.
Adding the fact that the crew manifest lists over 240 names, it is impossible that all these characters were aboard the ship in the Delta Quadrant. That's why I proposed (here) that the characters from the dedication plaque were listed in the dedication plaque because they were part of the ship's crew before it was stranded in the Delta Quadrant : construction, tests phase... (these characters are also listed in further sources) or as an homage. The only problem is the doubtful ranks : People previously refered as Captain or Admiral are listed on this crew manifest as Commander, lieutenant Commander, ensign... CaptainMike proposed the rank of Commander, Starfleet for the Admirals Berman, Braga and Taylor. I agree with his theory for these characters but this explanation don't work for the other characters : for example, Vice Adm. Brad Yacobian is refered as a lieutenant commander on this crew manifest and I don't believe in a "lieutenant commander, Starfleet" rank. That's why I proposed a second theory which is that this crew manifest was deliberately falsified. In that case, the names that are added must be names recognizable by the crew, so the use of the people on the dedication plaque with strange rank is a good way to memorize them. The advantage : disturb aliens who tries to scan the database or board the ship. For example, when Hirogen took control of the ship (crew manifest from "The Killing Game"), maybe they loosed hours searching for fantoms. Seeing that list, who's the second officer : Cdr Berman, Cdr Taylor or Cdr Braga... or someone else ? Hirogens may also have sent ships searching for these lacking crewmembers (remember that a lot of shuttlecrafts are lacking :). Another example, an alien ship scans the Voyager database and sees that there are 250 crewmembers aboard, will he launch a boarding, even if he can sense only 160 crewmembers from different origines (does his sensors work well or are there aliens that are undetectable ?) I think the falsification is the best explanation, but CaptainMike removed this theory. - Philoust123 12:33, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

simply because speculation isn't our job -- we should state that a disconiuity exists, not try strenuously to explain it. The fact is the crew manifest could have out-of-date ranks, or list people assigned to the ship that weren't aboard when it left dock. And i personally think that falsification doesnt sound that likely. -- Captain M.K.B. 21:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I still understand that R. Berman is alomst certainly not the same individual as Rick K. Berman, that Rick K. Berman may or may not be the same as Rick Berman (admiral), and that Rick Berman (admiral) is probably not the same person as Rick Berman (commander). And that this logic is true for all of the characters that exist only as listed tributes to behind-the-scenes crew members.

For every single one of these examples there is at most a few sentences of actual content, then a few sentences of background. Since the background is basically the same for each version, I still think that from every point of view (except possibly categorization) one—multi-section—page reads better and is more informative than meny very short pages. If the category issue really must trump these similarities, then logic suggests that each version should be a seperate page (a 100 year gap for a human is a bigger difference than first initial vs. first name, especially when it is the plaque stye at issue—every one on the NX plaque is first initial only, not just some of them.) —MJBurrage • TALK • 14:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)