What if Riker accepted his first Captain offer?

[Shikarnov]

In the novel The Buried Age, we follow Picard for several years between his command of the Stargazer and Enterprise-D. During his life as a civilian, he works with Janeway for a while. She's a lieutenant at the time. After accepting command of the E-D he considers possible first officers, and he considers her for a while, untill realizing she's unavailable.

Nothing about that novel is canon, but it was a very good read AND the idea of Janeway and Picard as XO/CO combo is interesting.

Thanks! I'm buying this book right now. I have to admit that a Picard/Janeway team up seems a little far fetched, but Christoper L Bennett is my favorite of modern Trek writers. That alone means (IMO, of course), that it'll be good.

To the point of the actual thread, Riker would probably have died with the rest of the Drake's crew. And the larger universe ramifications of that would probably end up with Earth being assimilated by the Borg. No Riker/Shelby dynamic pushing him to take risks. No resulting "unorthodox maneuvers (by an XO so good and so experienced that he was about to turn down a third command offer)." And no time left for the rest of the Federation to mobilize and save us.

It'd actually be an interesting fanfic to see how BOBW would play out with another XO leading the Enterprise. Maybe it would end with Q's help. "Jean Luc, I'm disappointed you couldn't solve this trivial problem, but I just couldn't let you die. There's so much more I want you to see..."

 

[BillJ]

If Riker loses the Drake, who’s to say that Paul Rice or Data or Shelby doesn’t come up with their own creative way to beat the Borg at Sector 001?

I mean, the Borg regeneration pathways would still be there.

 

[Maurice]

Diana Muldar as a "guest star" was mostly a legally technicality as she still appeared in at least some of the publicity and appeared in all but two episodes of season 2 (and IIRC was credited for the missing ones).

Whoopi Goldberg, who was the only "special guest star" doesn't seem to have started to appear in publicity until at least season 3 and was only credited in the episodes she appeared in.

Billing is based on contracts, and when members of the top-credited cast leave, they can't shove a new actor in just anywhere. This is why Jonathan Harris was in the last position in the Lost In Space credits. Because he was added to the show after the pilot, and the order of the billing was already established. He made himself stand out by having his credit read "Special Guest Star". I dunno what the contracts said about billing for TNG, but it looks to have been Stewart, Frakes, and then the other regulars in alphabetical order by last name. Muldaur may have taken the Special Appearance By credit to stand out from the regular cast. I'm also guessing she didn't sign a multi-year contract.