Battle of the Helmsmen will now commence. 8 pilots enter. 1 pilot leaves.
Battle of the Helmsmen will now commence. 8 pilots enter. 1 pilot leaves.
Highest upvoted helmsman in this thread will be declared best helmsman in the fleet.
Gotta go with Tom. Going from prison to full redemption, while at the same time growing into a loving father married to a hot badass half-Klingon is definitely life goals. Not to mention his affinity for history and classic cars.
Dude designed and built his own shuttle, then had a breakthrough in warp field theory that let him exceed warp 10. In addition to scraping through multiple battles with Borg and other fleets of enemies. How is he not the clear winner?
He broke warp 10 before he designed the Delta Flyer. Season 2 for warp 10 and season 5 for Delta Flyer.
He loses points for the time spent as a lizard, I think
Just as long as it's not time for his yearly mid-life crisis.
Yeah it's Paris and it's not even close. He was the first test pilot to break the trans-warp barrier. Smashin hot Klingon ass, and banged his captain when they were lizards. Mans a fuckin Starfleet legend.
I'd say Lt Mayweather as runner up. Dude was a freighter pilot and they basically tossed him in our very first combat spaceship that can hop around the galaxy. And was like "I dunno figure it out as we go" lmao.
Ortegas and Paris are definitely the most pilot like pilots character wise though. Both of them have fighter pilot personalities, excited to get into the action and do wild shit.
Sulu has a sword.
But Captain Proton has a Destructor Beam!
Overrated! 😡
Ortegas has wielded a sword too. I’d like to see them both wield a bat’leth. For honor you know.
The Federation's Helmsmen quality peaked in the 23rd century.
Its a battle of pilots.. is it a hand to hand battle? And even so somehow sulu gets a sword, when they all had phasers? Seems conceptually backwards to me
Piloting and fencing both require excellent hand-eye coordination. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that Mr. Sulu is the best helmsman. QED
I don’t care who wins as long as Wesley Crusher loses.
Just load him into the pattern buffer and pull the plug.
I've been waiting since TNG aired to upvote your comment.
I was about to say the same thing lol
I love the choice of picture here. Wil appears to be wearing his "I know everyone hates Wesley" face.
There's a kind of magic here that this is a game, and Wil's entry is going to lose badly. (We love you Wil.)
I'm gonna rank them because Sulu
- Sulu - has a sword. The OG. No comparison. Completely outclasses the others, but he's had the most development as a character over the years, so I don't really think it's a fair comparison
- Ortegas - I've been surprisingly impressed with the actress and she's without a doubt the most likeable after Sulu. The recent season has made her really interesting, and I hope the writers keep expanding her character. She's fantastic. "I fly the ship!"
- Tom Paris - best character development after Sulu, has consistently great moments throughout Voyager. I did feel his acting felt lackluster at times, which is why I gave Ortegas the spot above
- Mayweather - good solid performance, interesting character with a better background with Paris. I wish the writers had done more with the character.
- Detmer - again great potential in the character, but the writers never really let her shine. I wanted to find out more about her, but Discovery was so overshadowed by Michael's character that Detmer felt disappointingly underused.
- Ro - solid acting, but not much character depth. Never really clicked for me as a "helmsman" - always seemed like she was doing things other than piloting. Never really clicked as part of the crew in the way the rest of the cast did.
- Cartoon Dude - I have no idea what this guy's name is, but he's not Wesley.
- Wesley - I have great sympathy for Wil Wheaton's difficult experiences on set as child actor, but that simply cannot distill the loathing I have for this character. TNG was a near perfect Trek in almost every respect, save when Crusher was in the scene.
Cartoon Dude is "Captain" Gavin, a civilian that got stuck on a replica Phoenix that was stolen by the Lower Decks crew, so they could use it to steal their own ship from dry dock.
When the Lower Decks crew made it aboard their ship, they left him to fly off in the Phoenix on his own for his "Trek amongst the stars!"
He was eventually rescued by Star Fleet, adrift near Jupiter
Thanks - I've watched a bit of the 1st season of Lower Decks, but hadn't gotten to that part yet.
Still better than Wesley.
You gave words to my exact thoughts and feels.
Congratulations, you get to be me today.
I don't even know a lot of those but yes, Wesley must go!
Wesley, Ro, and Bozeman Tourist are eliminated immedietly, we never see them do anything fancy at all, they input courses and hit engage, that's it.
Of those remaining, Sulu is what most people think when they think fancy starship flying, but, if you really look at it, his top moments are manually flying a shuttle into a shuttle bay, and skillfully pulling rather relaxed but precise maneuvers piloting the Enterprise in V'Ger, the Bounty, and a Huey helicopter. No high speed are rapid maneuvering. So while he gets points for skill and for being able to fly anything he gets into, he's not the top pilot.
Detmer has shown some fancy flying, including combat maneuvers, but only on the Discovery. We don't know if she's as skilled if she's put into a shuttle or an atmospheric craft.
Mayweather, for all the failure to utilize his character, has been put in the hot seat with high pressure, rapid and precise maneuvering. Romulan minefields, combat against the Xindi, high warp precision formation flying, he really is a great pilot.
Ortega is right up there too, she flew into the accretion disk of a black hole while fighting the Gorn, even with her memory severely hampered she piloted the Enterprise through an asteroid field. She flies the ship, top marks, but...
Tom motherfucking Paris. This guy can fly through asteroid fields, through torn up subspace, fluidic space, quantum slipstream tunnels, shuttles, shuttles he designed, shuttles underwater, terrestrial vehicles, high speed combat maneuvers, you name it he can do it. Tom Paris is in my mind the unquestioned #1.
I like this breakdown, particularly the contrast between Ortegas and Paris. I think Ortegas is a better overall character, and gets big points for having her skills and progress matter to her character development. Paris, though, was an elite pilot before he showed up on Voyager, and then he spent years doing the most insane piloting anyone in Starfleet has ever seen. Ortegas is sort of the ideal of a relatable, blue-collar pilot with a promising career ahead of her, whereas Paris was a savant when he left with Voyager and a legend when he got home. He's a tier above everyone else on the list, you gotta hand it to him.
Tom Paris is an amazing pilot but he's the most bland bad boy ever. At least some of the others are interesting!
My vote is Sulu 100%
Oh my!
Tom Paris
Underrated best pilot for sure. The only pilot in the show who constantly just wanted to pilot things.
Enters a space race, designs his own shuttle and makes it look like a hot rod and configures the controls for manual operation. Works on classic cars on the holodeck. He breaks the warp 10 barrier.
My vote goes to Erica
Erica has to win. Being the pilot of the Enterprise is her only character trait, so it would be unfair to pick anyone else.
Also, SNW writers, GIVE US MORE ERICA ORTEGAS. After the strike, of course.
The pilot seat is her realm...
She needs someplace to put all that nonconformist sex appeal.
I’m upvoting this even though my vote goes to Sulu. Erica “I FLY THE SHIP” Ortegas needs her own fucking episode already.
Sulu easy win
Target the other candidates and fire.
I will not stand for this Jadzia Dax erasure. Does any one else have TWO lifetimes of being shuttle pilots? No.
Didn't the first Dax pilot die in a piloting accident, though?
I don't know if she ever said if it was pilot error or not though. He was a test pilot, so the accident may have been due to a flaw in the shuttle he was testing
How many other pilots survived dying in a crash? You can't buy that kind of experience!
Sulu all the way!
As far as I know he’s the only one with his own theme song.
I think advances in special effects give Ortegas and Detmer a pretty solid advantage over the others, just because fancier flying is now within tv production values.
But as far as I know, Sulu is the only one to make captain, get his own command, and have a ship named in his honor. Plus, he got to strut around in monster maroon.
And Tom Paris is a dick.
EDIT: of course, there is a guy who wore monster maroon at one point, got his own command, and made admiral. But for some reason, the helmsman of the Stargazer isn't an option.
If anyone says to vote out Sulu, I'm coming at you with a fencing saber.
Foil.
Yeah, he took the foil and left me with the saber.
1701% Mr. Sulu
I'm going with Mayweather, because of reasons that I couldn't possibly explain in four seasons.
He's the best stick and rudder man of all time.
The people demand Ortegas. She has the killer instinct.
Sulu FTW!
Ro and Paris team up to rogue their way through everybody else, expecting to betray each other at the last minute. Tom cooperates, Ro defects.
How is Lt. Commander Data not here?
Because he wasn't a helmsman, he worked the Conn position.
If I remember correctly, he rotated between stations over the course of the series. I could be wrong, but I can swear I remember him performing helmsman duties, especially when they needed fancy flying.
Are we considering their piloting skills or their personality off the bridge?
Permanently Deleted
Jokes on you - I already have a drinking problem. It goes along with my Ensign Ro simping problem.
Yes.
Sulu without a doubt
Tom Paris literally broke spacetime and did direct action to save a water planet.
Is there any question?
I question the inclusion of Gavin the Botanist as the Lower Decks entry--doesn't Boimler at least man the helm when he's on the bridge, including the season 1 and 3 finales?
(While federation ships have some variation on which front console is main ops vs. helm, the Cerritos' ops is stage left, mostly indicated by Ensign Barnes' occasional presence there.).
Gavin, the pilot, was really only included because I couldn't think of an 8th pilot and I had just gotten done watching Lower Decks. But if I ever repost it I will include Boims for you.
Rutherford probably would have been a good choice for Lower Decks. We know his past self was a champion sublight racer, and his current self beat him in a race piloting the Delta Flyer. He just doesn't get much time behind the helm because he's now an engineer first and foremost
Data on the last episode of PIC pretty much out flew everyone in that fat ass Galaxy Class Enterprise. Driving likes hes in Tokyo Drift 😂
Tom Paris!
You mean 4? Detmer, Ro, Gavin, and Welsey don't have anything to use against the other 4.
EDIT: Detmer may have something against the other 4.
Ro, how is this even a question.
Tom Paris, but I am admittedly going through Voyager right now. Sulu is the other on my list.
Sulu, Travis, Tom Paris, get my vote