>Would that fifth sacked fleet commander be Kimball Kinnison?

No; that was a gentleman by the name of Hiram Kimball. Like his four predecessors in the role, he came highly recommended with excellent credentials and experience from another well-established organization (in his case, Starfleet), but failed utterly to adapt his experience to the unique demands of the International Police CINCSF position. In his case, as we've seen, his chief problem was his inability to grasp, or possibly just to act upon, the Space Force's need for quick command action in an immediate crisis.

(Of the other four, one was determined to impose a stricter chain of command no matter how many toes got stepped on and noses put out of joint, one resigned after reading the brief on the Irregular Projects Division, one turned out to be a closet member of the Church of Man, and one was simply incompetent in all respects. And no, none of them was anyone you know.)

Filling the position with a satisfactory candidate who would actually be happy doing the job has proven much more difficult than the Chief thought it would be when he relinquished his Space Force rank back in the fall of 2409. He's been averaging a replacement about every five weeks. You'd think that wouldn't even be enough time to determine that someone wasn't going to work out, but the Space Force is, as Commodore Tenjou could tell you, a crucible even in peacetime. You either get it immediately or have a psychotic episode.

For the historically curious, Kimball's name is derived from that of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, commander of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet at the outbreak of World War II. Kimmel had the unenviable distinction of watching the Pearl Harbor attack unfold on his watch, and although the subsequent ruin of his career was probably uncalled-for, given that there were plenty of pooches to go around on Hawaii that day, he (and the Army's General Walter Short) took the administrative fall for the failures that day. In my judgment, he was a competent man in a situation that could only have been salvaged by a brilliant one. The same could be said of Admiral Kimball (who will, I'm sure, get a nice recommendation to a position for which he's better-suited once the dust settles).

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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